China-Watching: Global Knowledge Production about China

This presentation is about a book on global knowledge production about China which Julie Chen will publish in 2026. Her book compares the local, regional, and global politics of China-watchers from the twentieth century to the present, with a focus on the past and its connection to the present. There is bourgeoning literature on the challenges facing China-watchers and the institutions where they work in the contemporary era. However, her work differs by exploring the longue durée perspective of China-watchers’ conditions and the perpetuated interactions between politics and the knowledge of China being produced. There is a trend that China-watchers outside of the PRC have to show their distance from the Chinese state and other affiliated Chinese institutions to convince their audiences of their credibility and independent capacities to study China, even though not all China-watchers can professionally and privately disentangle themselves entirely from their study-subject of China. China-watchers are not just passive individuals constrained by the political climate and structure. China-watchers may exercise individual agency to make choices regarding what they wish to present about China to their audiences.

Julie Yu-Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies at Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki in Finland. She is one of the editors for the highly ranked Journal of Chinese Political Sciences, under the auspices of the Association of Chinese Political Studies dedicated to academic and professional activities relating to Chinese politics.