The recent World Conference on China Studies - Shanghai Forum, which concluded on November 24, was one of the largest gatherings of global "China hands." At the two-day forum, more than 400 Chinese and foreign scholars specializing or interested in China studies discussed their insights on Chinese civilization and China's path of development, as well as their impacts on the current global landscape.

During the forum, some of the overseas scholars, including winners of the 2023 Award for Distinguished Contributions to China Studies, shared their personal China experiences, observations, and understandings of Chinese civilization and China's path with the Global Times.

These "China hands" are witnesses to China's modernization and social development, and play an important role as bridges that link China and the world, observers told the Global Times on Monday.

Witnesses and bridges

The forum announced the winners of the 2023 Award for Distinguished Contributions to China Studies on November 24. They included Timothy Brook, professor emeritus at Department of History, University of British Columbia, Baik Young-seo, professor emeritus at Yonsei University, and Kishore Mahbubani, distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.
Brook and Baik participated in the in-person forum in Shanghai. At an interview on November 23, Brook said that Shanghai "makes him jump." "The Shanghai of today is completely different from that of the 1970s," he told the media in fluent Putonghua. "The city reminds me of New York when I look out of my hotel at the Bund."

Shanghai was one of the starting places that sparked Brook's relationship with China. In 1974, then 23-year-old Brook studied ancient Chinese history and literature at Fudan University as one of the earliest young Canadians to come to China as exchange students. At Fudan, he developed a keen interest in China's Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and later started his decades of research in Chinese history, particularly into the Ming Dynasty history.

At the forum venue by the Huangpu River, Brook said although he has visited Shanghai many times over the years, he is quite impressed by the development of China's most modernized metropolis during each visit. "I found that Shanghai has 'grown up' to a degree that I've never seen before," he said, as if describing an old friend.

Brook is hailed as one of the best storytellers among North American historians. His many books focusing on China during the period of the Ming Dynasty, such as The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China, open a window for international readers to learn more about Chinese history and civilization.

"I keep writing books about China in order to increase the outside world's understanding of China," Brook told the Global Times.

Brook is among the expanding pool of international scholars in China studies who have, in recent decades, personally experienced China's rapid path to development.
Rachel Murphy, who prefers to go by her Chinese name "Rui Xue (auspicious snow in a literal translation)" in China, was a guest speaker at the forum. As a Chinese Development and Society professor at the University of Oxford and former president of the British Association for Chinese Studies, she has been engaged in China-related research, exploring China's social and cultural changes caused by urbanization, educational development, demographic transition, and state policies.

During the last 20 years, Murphy has travelled to many villages, towns, and cities across China. Her long-term fieldwork makes her an old "China hand."

Murphy marveled at China's tremendous development, especially in the countryside. "China's urbanization is progressing very fast," she told the Global Times during the forum. "The book I wrote [about rural China] before is out of date now."

Murphy shared that a week ahead of the forum, she visited several villages in Anhui Provinces, where she had been to a few years before. She was surprised by the great changes in communication in rural China.

Wi-Fi availability is now commonplace in many villages, enabling "left-behind" children to stay in contact with their migrant worker parents through frequent video calls, said Murphy. She was surprised to see many elderly women like to share their rural lives on Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok).

"The speed of technological changes [in China] is truly amazing," Murphy said in Putonghua. "Rural areas included, the ubiquitous nature of 'connection' [across China] is a remarkable achievement."

Among the China studies scholars who attended the forum in Shanghai, Michael Crook, a Chinese Government Friendship Award winner, is a familiar "China hand" to many Chinese people.

Crook's family has been profoundly and closely connected to China. Six generations of his family have worked and lived in China. Born and raised in Beijing, Crook has devoted decades to education in China. Now he teaches children from expatriate families in Beijing Chinese history and culture, acting as a bridge between people in China and the West, especially among the younger generation.

During the forum, Crook told Chinese media that he believes Chinese and Western cultures have their own merits. "They can learn from each other," he said.

A path worthy of reference

Crook was a guest speaker at a sub-forum being held during the Shanghai Forum on November 24. The theme of the sub-forum was "Explorations: Chinese Modernization and China's Path."

Under this theme, many participants of the sub-forum shared their understanding of China's path to modernization, and some highlights of China's path worthy of reference for other countries.

China is a good example of integrating its own development with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNDGs), said economist Ranee Jayamaha, lead consultant for the South Asia-World Bank Group.

She offered how China has launched the Initiative for Belt and Road Partnership on Green Development together with 31 countries, and closely aligned the initiative with the needs of global green development by investing in renewable energy and adopting comprehensive pollution reduction measures as an example.

This is a good story of China's success in positively influencing world development, Jayamaha commented.

Crook mentioned China's ethnic policies, which he thinks can be referenced by multi-ethnic countries.

In a speech he delivered at the sub-forum, Crook recalled his visit to a school in China's Xizang Autonomous Region in May. The school teaches both Putonghua and Tibetan, and entirely permissible for the latter to be spoken in class. The small case shows China respects and supports its ethnic minorities at the national level, said Crook.

With China's rise and its growing international influence, many countries, especially those in the Global South, are interested in Chine's development, and are looking forward to learning from China's experiences, many attendees of the forum told the Global Times.

And these contemporary "China hands" are making efforts to know more about China, exploring China's development path and sharing their observations and understandings with the world.

China is on a multi-dimensional path of development, Josette Altmann-Borbón, secretary general of Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, said in a speech delivered at the forum's opening ceremony on November 24.

We should fully understand the important role China plays on the global stage, she noted.

Building momentum toward COP28, a seminar co-organized by the United Nations in China and the Embassy of Spain, with the support of the Delegation of the European Union, was held on Tuesday at the UNICEF Compound, Beijing. 

The seminar aimed to mediate negotiations and share a preview of China's strategic line at COP28, and spearhead detailed discussions both on China's position and priorities for the upcoming COP28, along with member states and other stakeholders' expectations with a view to advance dialogue in the lead up to COP28.  

Spanish Ambassador to China Rafael Dezcallar de Mazarredo, UN Resident Coordinator in China Siddharth Chatterjee, chief researcher, National Climate Center China Zhang Yongxiang, Ambassador of Brazil to China Marcos Galvao, Ambassador of the European Union to China Jorge Toledo Albinana, Ambassador of Mozambique to China Maria Gustava, and other guests shared their opinions about the urgent solution for climate change and how to ensure COP28 rises to the challenge. 

The Spanish Ambassador stressed that climate change is threatening the very existence of life on earth and people should work together and rise to the challenge. 

"We want to work together with China. We can contribute with our experience on issues such as technological cooperation, energy market reform, energy transition (with its essential components of energy security and emissions neutrality), and energy efficiency. We are open to increase our cooperation in all fields," he told the Global Times and expressed his sincere cooperation willingness with China in dealing with climate change. 

The final objective of the seminar was for all parties to have a greater level of understanding on each other's positions in advance of COP28, a shared understanding of the importance of the Global Stocktake at COP28, and generate ideas on how to develop paths that can lead to ambitious agreements and actions at COP28.

Under China's meditation and facilitation efforts, a formal ceasefire agreement has been reached between the Myanmar military and three ethnic armed groups in northern Myanmar, namely the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Ta'ang National Liberation Army, and the Arakan Army, after the two sides held peace talks in the city of Kunming in Southwest China's Yunnan Province from Wednesday to Thursday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Friday.

According to spokesperson Mao Ning, the two sides agreed to an immediate ceasefire to end the war, a military disengagement, and the solving of relevant disputes and demands through peaceful negotiations. They also promised not to harm Chinese border residents and Chinese nationals involved in projects in Myanmar. 

"Maintaining the momentum of the ceasefire and peace talks in northern Myanmar is in the interests of all parties in Myanmar, and also helps to maintain peace and stability in the border areas between China and Myanmar," Mao said, expressing the wish that the relevant parties can truly implement the ceasefire deal and China's willingness to provide support and assistance to the best of its ability for northern Myanmar's peace progress.

China has maintained close communication with Myanmar over the situation in northern Myanmar and has helped mediate several rounds of peace talks.

From January 4 to 6, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong visited Myanmar. Sun met with Myanmar leader Min Aung Hlaing and held consultations with Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Myanmar U Lwin Oo, stressing China's commitment to continuing to play a constructive role in supporting the peace process in northern Myanmar. On December 5, Chinese State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong had a video call with Myanmar Union Minister for Home Affairs Lt-Gen Yar Pyae.

Earlier on January 3, an artillery shell crossed the border from Myanmar into a Chinese town in Yunnan Province, causing injuries to five Chinese people.

China then lodged serious démarches to relevant parties and once again asked all parties in the conflict to reach an immediate ceasefire, vowing to take necessary measures to safeguard the lives and property of its nationals.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday met with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto via video link.

US Congress has reportedly reached a deal on how much the US government will spend in 2024 in a significant move toward avoiding a shutdown, but it doesn't necessarily defuse the threat altogether, Chinese observers said.

The US government shutdown risk reflects Washington's "declining fiscal management and governance ability," which may negatively impact US economy and the financial market, they said
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The deal would establish an overall spending level of $1.59 trillion in fiscal 2024, US media outlet NBC News reported on Monday, noting that the threat of a potential US government shutdown isn't completely ruled out yet, as Congress still needs to allocate the money, write the bills and approve them.

During the last five decades, there have been 21 US federal government shutdowns. A government shutdown would lead to the suspension of nonessential federal functions and result in millions of federal employees not receiving pay.

The repeated US federal government shutdowns and lingering threats reflect that the US government's relatively weak governance and fiscal management ability, although for many times, the US government is able to solve crises at the last minute, Huo Jianguo, vice chairman of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies, told the Global Times on Monday.

The continuous increase in US government debt will produce negative effect on the US economy in the long run, as Washington needs to pay more interest on its huge debt, Dong Yun, director of the Research Center for International Political Economics of the National Institution for Finance and Development, told the Global Times on Monday.

"The US' fiscal sustainability will continue to weaken, which may increase US financial sector instability and spill over to impact global markets," Dong said.
Dong said it's a general trend that many countries are diversifying their foreign assets and increasing holdings of gold, but only by promoting reforms to the international monetary system and boosting the development of emerging market economies can there be "more choices for a country's holdings of foreign assets."

Aside from shocks to the US itself, repeated government shutdowns will impact the US' influence in global affairs and accelerate the decline of US dollar hegemony in the world, Huo said.

Huo said that the continuous issuance of US Treasuries will make it difficult for the US government to repay its debts, which will reduce the reliability and credibility of US dollar-denominated assets.

The US' aggressive interest rate hikes to tame inflation has brought spillover effects to other countries, especially developing countries, making many economies rush to diversify payment using local currencies and increasing holdings of gold in 2023.

China's gold reserves reached 71.87 million ounces at the end of December, marking the 14th consecutive month of increase, latest data from the People's Bank of China showed.

The alarming conclusion has been drawn from the first-ever IUCN red list assessment of freshwater species, which identifies global heating, pollution, overfishing, and falling water levels as major threats to vital aquatic populations.

A comprehensive study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) highlights the precarious state of freshwater fish globally, with iconic species such as the Lake Turkana robber and the Mekong giant catfish facing the imminent risk of disappearing.

Of the 14,898 assessed species, a staggering 3,086 are now in danger of vanishing, with nearly one-fifth of all threatened freshwater species directly impacted by climate change-induced factors such as falling water levels and shifting seasons.

The assessment also sheds light on the escalating threats to other species, including mahogany, Atlantic salmon, and green turtles. Big leaf mahogany, a highly sought-after plant commercially, is now classified as endangered due to a 60% decline in numbers over the past 180 years.

Atlantic salmon, once abundant and considered of least concern, is now near threatened, with a 23% global population decline and disappearance from many UK rivers.

Amidst these alarming findings, the report also brings attention to positive conservation efforts. The saiga antelope, moving from critically endangered to near threatened, experienced a remarkable 1,100% population increase in just seven years in Kazakhstan. Similarly, the scimitar-horned oryx, once extinct in Chad due to overhunting, has seen successful reintroduction efforts, leading to a vulnerable classification.

IUCN President Razan Al Mubarak has emphasized the need for coordinated global conservation efforts in the face of the interconnected climate and biodiversity crises.

The report underscored the importance of addressing these issues to ensure the durability of conservation actions.

The assessment also highlights the vulnerability of central south Pacific and east Pacific green turtles, major victims of industrial and artisanal fishing, with rising global temperatures affecting their hatching success and sea temperature fluctuations endangering their nesting sites.

Since 2017, the permanent population of Beijing has been declining for six consecutive years, and the distribution of the population shows a pattern of multiple support points and gradient distribution, while the health and cultural quality of the population ranking among the top in the country, according to the Beijing Administration Institute (BAI) on Saturday.

On Saturday, the "Beijing Population Blue Book: Research Report on Beijing Population Development (2023)" was released by the BAI, analyzing and forecasting Beijing's population trends. It focuses on the population development of Beijing from various perspectives such as preschool education, youth population, childbearing age population, elderly population and the population living in the capital's metropolitan area, in addition to conducting in-depth research on coping with an ageing population.

The permanent population of the capital city was 21.843 million in 2022, with a registered population of 14.277 million, maintaining a steady decline in the size of the permanent population and a continued growth in the registered population.

In addition, in 2022, the birth rate for the city's permanent population continued to decline, and the natural growth rate of the permanent population revealed a negative value synchronized with the national level. In terms of population structure, the aging of the population has become more pronounced, while the proportion of the working-age population is still higher than the national average.

In 2022, the city's permanent population aged 60 and above was 4.651 million, accounting for 21.3 percent of the total population, which is 1.5 percentage points higher than the national average. The size of the working-age population aged 15 to 64 has been continuously declining from 2015, reaching 15.902 million in 2022, accounting for 72.8 percent of the total population, also higher than the national average.

In terms of population distribution, the report noted that the regional distribution of the population in the city has remained stable, showing a pattern of multiple support points and gradient distribution. Both the population size and proportion in downtown areas have declined, while the population size and proportion in the urban sub-center and the plain new city have increased. The number of residents living in the city's designated ecological conservation area has fluctuated, and the pattern of population distribution with multiple support points continues to form, which has helped Beijing achieve balanced development in multiple areas.

The report also points out that the health level and cultural quality of the population in this city are among the best in the country. In 2021, the average life expectancy of registered residents stood at 82.47 years, higher than the national average. In 2020, the average years of education for the permanent population aged 15 and above was 12.64 years, far exceeding the national average. In 2022, there were 56,181 people with a college degree or above per 100,000 permanent residents aged 15 and above in Beijing.

The stable size of high-quality labor force has laid a solid foundation for Beijing to build an international science and technology innovation center and high-level talent hub, and promote the deep integration of innovation chain, industry chain, capital chain and talent chain, it noted.

It also added that the city is still in an opportunity window for economic transformation and upgrading, which will not close in the short term. The document recommended greater focus on achieving a balanced population structure, leveraging the dividends of reform and talent, and releasing the dividends of population. In addition, the report also suggests that the city should make good use of the opportunities brought by the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region and enhance the vitality of Beijing's population development in building an integrated high-quality development demonstration zone.

China’s elite diving athletes Wang Zongyuan and Chen Yuxi have secured spots for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games after winning gold at the national diving championship on Wednesday in Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province.

Over 200 divers are competing at the annual event that will last till Tuesday. An analyst told the Global Times on Thursday that the championship, which serves as one of the three-leg qualifiers for the Paris Olympic Games, will help the national team to find some new diamonds in the rough.

China’s new diving talisman, 20-year-old Wang, ranked first in each of the six rounds in the final to triumph during the 3-meter springboard while two-time Olympic medalist Chen edged out Olympic champion Quan Hongchan to win gold during the 10-meter platform.

According to the point-based qualification for the Paris Olympic Games diving events announced by the Chinese Swimming Association, there are three legs of qualifiers, namely the national diving tournament in March, the ongoing national diving championship and the World Aquatics Championships to be held in Doha, Qatar in February 2024. 

The two best rankings out of the three legs of a diver are translated into points. The top four athletes with the most points in a single event will be selected into the Olympic roster.

Wang and Chen, who also won gold at the national tournament in March, have thus secured their berths for the Olympic Games.

“The victory shows that my training and hard work have paid off. I take every competition seriously, and hopefully I can do my best in every competition. However, I was not at my best during the preliminaries and made some mistakes,” said Chen, who lost to Quan in October’s Hangzhou Asian Games. 

“While the top divers are vying for spots for the Olympics, the national event also provides an opportunity for younger talents to make their mark. Jiang Linjing is a big surprise in the highly competitive 10-meter platform,” Liu Yu, a Beijing-based sports commentator, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Jiang Linjing, a 13-year-old diver from South China’s Guangdong Province, managed to finish third behind Olympic champions Chen and Quan.  

“They [Chen and Quan] are my idols. They were consistent in their dives and rarely make mistakes. I’m doing okay in training, but I tend to get nervous in big events,” said Jiang, who tried the 307C dive, one of the most difficult dives, for the first time in the competition. 

Eyes will be focused on the men’s 10-meter platform final on Saturday as this is the only event in which China failed to win gold at July’s World Aquatics Championship in Fukuoka, Japan. 

China swept 11 out of 12 golds on offer at the world championship and Australia’s Cassiel Rousseau upset China’s Lian Junjie and Yang Hao in a roller-coaster 10-meter platform final. 

Women’s 3-meter springboard will also take place on Saturday. 

In order to inspire athletes to innovate and take on challenging dives, the event has introduced special awards recognizing both the difficulty and groundbreaking achievements.

With the rise of social media networks and involvement of capital, fandom culture as a niche subculture has attracted more and more attention from the mainstream. 

From an external perspective, the rapid advancement of technology and social media platforms have served as prerequisites, while investment from the capital market has fueled its development. As to the internal factors, the formation of fan communities meets people's psychological needs. For one thing, in today's fast-paced modern society, some young people have made online platforms their first choice to ease loneliness and express their feelings, while fan clubs allow people to show off their personality, achieve self-satisfaction and gain a sense of community and belonging. 

Debate about fandom culture tends to focus on its potential dangers. 

To begin with, the distortion of values caused by group polarization, especially for younger generations, leads to shocking incidents like pouring out drink bottles just to obtain a QR code inside the bottle cap to support an idol. Besides wasting resources and over-consumption, craze-driven irrational behavior such as stalking, doxing, fighting, and invading people's privacy have endangered public safety. 

More seriously, the uneven occupation of online resources by celebrity topics or entertainment events triggered by a large amount of fan participation and capital manipulation takes atte  ntion away from significant issues that involve public life. Under such circumstances, our culture, sports, education, and businesses would likely be reduced to entertainment accessories, and the final result might lead to actually "amusing" ourselves to death. 

However, as some observers fret about these dystopian scenarios, others focus on the potential rewards.

First, personalized consumption in fandom culture boosts the economy. In August, a popular Chinese idol group fueled a ticket-buying binge in which the first batch of over 33,000 tickets were snapped up in a few seconds. Revenue on ticket and live-streaming platforms reached more than 100 million yuan ($13.6 million) and drove local tourism revenue up to 416 million yuan. With social media, forces converge quickly, and fans can do great things for their idols. Their desire for expression, interactivity, and participation leads to a long tail effect in the vast fan market, which contains enormous consumption potential and benefits upstream and downstream industry development. 

Secondly, fandom culture alleviates the crisis of contemporary social identity and soothes our souls. As a social subculture system, fandom culture is based on seeking social interaction and identity recognition. Fans build emotional trust, form a community with common ideals, and find a new identity and a sense of belonging through communication and interaction with group members in an increasingly atomized society. For fans who have gone through their youth accompanied by some idols, nostalgia reveals their inner desire for a familiar, safe, and stable environment that serves as a spiritual sanctuary and utopia for rosy memories, helping them confront the fragmentation of the modern world and the discomfort of the rapid changes under globalization.

Fandom culture also empowers society. An idol who constantly contributes positive energy is an essential source of cohesion in society. Fans' heartfelt wishes to become better people alongside their idols have led them to ask idols to behave with higher standards and set good examples. 

For instance, some celebrities encourage fans to develop good reading habits, promote Chinese traditional culture, which is increasingly favored by young people, and participate in activities such as environmental protection and poverty alleviation. Several public benefit activities have benefited from the tremendous force and passion of fan communities, which are mainly composed of the Post-1990 and Post-2000 generations, who possess a higher level of education and more self-discipline. 

A fan may be a company staff, a professional photographer, or an illustrator and designer. They all have proficiency in a particular line. Thus, their efforts not only bring more energy and sunshine to society but also enrich the cultural ecology.  

So, fan culture is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, based on similar interests or shared memory, it allows fans to build social networks to find a new identity, accumulate real or virtual resources both online and offline, and form informal organizations. On the other hand, it also causes the group to get stuck in information cocoons and possibly tend to behave irrationally due to the existence of the "echo chamber effect." Fans are easily reduced to digital laborers and "one-dimensional people." 

Fan culture, driven by technology and capital, alters what we think and how we behave without us realizing it, making a difference in the overall cyberculture and even society as a whole. Whether it is a bane or boon depends on how we lead and guide. 

Accordingly, we should, above all, realize the pros and cons brought about by the development of fan culture and strengthen top-level design to shape a comprehensive paradigm featuring multi-party collaboration, namely government, platform, and fan groups, which will promote economic development, generate positive energy and minimize adverse effects.