International Symposium on Transnational History of China
Date: 29 – 31 Aug 2025 Venue: 4.36, 4/F Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Day 1 - August 29, 2025 (Friday)
Morning Session
9:30 – 10:00 Registration
10:00 – 10:15 Opening Remarks by David Pomfret
10:30 – 11:40 Keynote Session 1
China’s Partners: Alliances, Alignments and Influence in China’s Transnational History
William C. Kirby (Harvard University)
Afternoon Session
13:50 – 15:10 Panel 1
Seeking Justice for All Sentient Beings: Lü Bicheng’s Feminist Vegetarianism
Du Chunmei (Lingnan University)
The Last Boat back to China: Xiao Qian and the Transnational Biography
Fan Xin (University of Cambridge / ShanghaiTech University)
15:20 – 17:20 Panel 2
Beyond the Perspectives of National and Transnational Histories: A Coevolutionary Approach to Researching and Writing History in the Age of Post-Globalisation
Billy K. L. So (University of Hong Kong)
Sufumi So (University of Hong Kong)
Fairbank and the Making of an International History of China
Paul Evans (University of British Columbia)
Cloud Computing 1.0
Shellen X. Wu (Lehigh University)
Day 2 - August 30, 2025 (Saturday)
Morning Session
9:30 – 10:00 Registration
10:00 – 11:10 Keynote Session 2
Hiatus of Power: The End of Empire and the Rise of the Nation State in Asia, 1945-1949
Hans van de Ven (University of Cambridge & Peking University)
11:10 – 13:10 Panel 3
Takasaki Tatsunosuke and the Politics of Early PRC-Japan Trade, 1949–1964
Koji Hirata (Monash University)
Legal Codes in Chosŏn, Qing, and Nguyễn States: A Preliminary Analysis of Early Modern Sinitic Law
Jaymin Kim (Rice University)
The Rise of Andong in the Political and Trade Networks in Northeast Asia, 1630s-1930s
Wang Yuanchong (University of Delaware)
Afternoon Session
14:15 – 15:25 Keynote Session 3
China as a Contested Object of Thought: European Vantage Points
Dominic Sachsenmaier (University of Göttingen)
15:40 – 17:40 Panel 4
Electrifying Consumers: Advertisements and the Promotion of Electricity in Republican Shanghai, 1912-1937
Ghassan Moazzin (University of Hong Kong)
Hong Kong Dollar: Mediating China’s Participation in Global Capitalism since the Nineteenth Century
John D. Wong (University of Hong Kong)
From Military-Industrial Complex to Global Supply Chain: A History of the
Electronics Industry in Shenzhen, China
Zhou Taomo (National University of Singapore)
Day 3 - August 31, 2025 (Sunday)
Morning Session
9:30 – 10:00 Registration
10:00 – 11:20 Panel 5
Constructing a Heavenly Realm: State, Buddhism, and Sino-Japanese Relations in the Yuan-Ming Transition
Li Yiwen (City University of Hong Kong)
Hakka Chinese in the Caribbean: Race, Religion, and Identity from the 1850s to 1940s
Li Ji (University of Hong Kong)
Qiu Zichan (University of Illinois Chicago)
11:20 – 12:40 Panel 6
An Early-Modern Broadcast: News of the Manchu Conquest of China in the Jesuit Annual Letters, 1644–1649
Yuval Givon (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Ming Loyalists in Southern Vietnam: New Evidence and Interpretations
Hang Xing (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
12:40 – 13:00 Closing Remarks by Xu Guoqi
The Symposium is funded by the Faculty Conference Support Scheme, Faculty of Arts.