Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies Archives

Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China

Unlikely Partners recounts the story of how Chinese politicians and intellectuals looked beyond their country’s borders for economic guidance at a key crossroads in the nation’s tumultuous twentieth century. Julian Gewirtz offers a dramatic tale of competition for influence between reformers and hardline conservatives during the Deng Xiaoping era, bringing to light China’s productive exchanges with the West. […Learn More]

China, the UN, and Human Protection: Beliefs, Power, Image

Over a relatively short period of time, Beijing moved from dismissing the UN to embracing it. How are we to make sense of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) embrace of the UN, and what does its engagement mean in larger terms?

This study focuses directly on Beijing’s involvement in one of the most contentious areas of UN activity — human protection — contentious because the norm of human protection tips the balance away from the UN’s Westphalian state-based profile, towards the provision of greater protection for the security of individuals and their individual liberties […Learn More]

How China Loses: The Pushback against Chinese Global Ambitions

A critical look at how the world is responding to China’s rise, and what this means for America and the world.

China is advancing its own interests with increasing aggression. From its Belt and Road Initiative linking Asia and Europe, to its “Made in China 2025” strategy to dominate high-tech industries, to its significant economic reach into Africa and Latin America, the regime is rapidly expanding its influence around the globe. Many fear that China’s economic clout, tech innovations, and military power will allow it to remake the world in its own authoritarian image. But despite all these strengths, a future with China in charge is far from certain. Rich and poor, big and small, countries around
the world are recognizing that engaging China produces new strategic vulnerabilities to their independence and competitiveness. […Learn More]

Beyond the Steppe Frontier: A History of the Sino – Russian Border

A comprehensive history of the Sino-Russian border, one of the longest and most important land borders in the world

The Sino-Russian border, once the world’s longest land border, has received scant attention in histories about the margins of empires. Beyond the Steppe Frontier rectifies this by exploring the demarcation’s remarkable transformation―from a vaguely marked frontier in the seventeenth century to its twentieth-century incarnation as a tightly patrolled barrier girded by watchtowers, barbed wire, and border guards. […Learn More]