Seminar Listings: Fall 2009

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Development of Telecommunications and the Internet in China

September 8 (Tuesday), 3:00 p.m., Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
Eric Harwit, Professor, UHM Asian Studies

China's telecommunications sector has grown remarkably quickly in the past 25 years, and today has the largest number of telephone and Internet users in the world. This talk examines the factors that have brought about this monumental change, and focuses on the role of the Chinese government, Chinese companies, and foreign businesses in the transformation. In examining the Internet, it also considers potential problems associated with the government's desire for control of the flow of information.

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China’s Long March to Freedom: Grassroots Modernization

September 15 (Tuesday), 3:00 p.m., Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
Kate Zhou, Associate Professor, UHM Political Science

China is more than a socialist market economy led by ever more reform-minded leaders. It is a country whose people seek liberty on a daily basis. Their success has been phenomenal, despite the fact that China continues to be governed by a single party. Clear distinctions between the people and the government are emerging, underlining the fact that true liberalization cannot be imposed from above. Although a large percentage of the Chinese people have been part of China's long march to freedom, in the beginning farmers, entrepreneurs, migrants, Chinese gays, sex pleasure seekers, and black-marketers played a particularly important role. Lawyers, scholars, journalists, and rights activists have jumped in more recently to ensure that liberalization continues. Social dissatisfaction with the government is now published in the media, addressed in public forums, and deliberated in courtrooms. Intellectuals devoted to improvement in human rights and continued liberalization are part of the process. This grassroots social revolution has also resulted from the explosion of information available to ordinary people (especially via the Internet) and far-reaching international influences. All have fundamentally altered key elements of the moral and material content of China's party-state regime and society at large. This social revolution is moving China towards a more liberal society despite its government. The Chinese government reacts, rather than leads, in this transformative process.

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Roundtable: The People’s Republic of China at 60

September 29 (Tuesday), 3:00 p.m., Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
Participants to be announced later

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In Search of Allah’s Chinese Name

October 20 (Tuesday), 3:00 p.m., Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
James Frankel, Assistant Professor, UHM Religion

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China’s New Labor & Employment Laws and the Three \“S’s:\” Stresses, Strains, and Significance

October 27 (Tuesday), 3:00 p.m., Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
Ron Brown, Professor UHM Law

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Ecotourism in China

November 3 (Tuesday), 3:00 p.m., Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
Li Yanqin, Associate Professor, Central University of Nationalities, and visiting scholar at UHM

Visiting Scholar at UHM

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Sovereignty at the Edge: Macau and the Question of Chineseness

November 10 (Tuesday), 3:00 p.m., Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
Cathy Clayton, Assistant Professor, UHM Asian Studies

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Shanghai Network: Reconsidering the Economic Order in Late Nineteenth Century East Asia

October 12 (Monday), 3:00 p.m., Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
Kazuko Furuta, Professor of Economics, Keio University

cosponsored with School of Pacific & Asian Studies

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