In the framework of an FWO-MOST (Taiwan) agreement, the workshop 'EU - East Asia Relations in a Shifting Global Order' will be organized on 12 and 13 September 2023. Venue: 'De Abt', Lange Kruisstraat 4, 9000 Gent.

September 12, 2023

Opening Remark (09:00-09:20)

Prof. Dr. Bart DESSEIN (Ghent University)

Representative of International Relation Office, Ghent University

Prof. Dr. I-Ling CHANG (Director of NSTC, Taipei Representative Office in the EU)

Prof. Dr. Chin-peng CHU (Monnet Chair and President, CAPS Taipei)

Session 1 Europe and the Cross-strait Interaction (09:20-10:50)

Chair: Sven BISCOP (Ghent University)

1. Sven BISCOP (Ghent University): Global geopolitics in shift: The role of the EU, China, and Taiwan.

2. Jasper ROCTUS (Ghent University): The European Union and cross-strait relations: Just what is “its” one-China policy?

3. Cathy LI (Monnet Chair, Soochow University): A closer look at the stagnant multilateral investment court system and 2022 ICSID Arbitration reform: Mapping concerns of East Asian countries and how to address them.

Session 2 Geopolitical and Security Issues (I) (11:10-12:40)

Chair: Chin-peng CHU (Monnet Chair and President, CAPS Taipei)

1. Chi-mei LUO (Monnet Chair, National Taipei University): Reflecting Zeitenwende or reconfirmation with convention: Germany’s Indo-Pacific policy and how far can it go?

2. Jieqiong DUAN (Ghent University): “EU-China security relations: A role-based perspective”

3. Yun-chen LAI (National Dong Hwa University): “EU’s Indo-Pacific Strategy: A chance for EU-Taiwan BIA?”

Session 3 Geopolitical and Security Issues (II) (14:00-15:30)

Chair: Nanae BALDAUFF (UNU-CRIS)

1. Nanae BALDAUFF (UNU-CRIS): The evolution of Japan's Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept.

2. Yang LI (Ghent University): China’s instrumentalization of foreign relations.

3. Shiang-yuan CHU (Giessen University): EU’s strategic autonomy and EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy: Implications of new era EU-China relations.

Session 4 Culture and Normative Issues (15:50-17:20)

Chair: Bart DESSEIN (Ghent University)

1. Bart DESSEIN (Ghent University): A logic of relationship or a logic of appropriateness?

2. Yu-Zhou WANG (Ghent University): On the Tianxia (all-under-heaven) theory.

3. Yih-Jye HWANG (The Hague College Leiden University): Re-examining the Belt and Road Initiative under the framework of China-CEEC cooperation: A moral realist analysis.

September 13, 2023

Session 5 Economic Issues (09:00-10:30)

Chair: Chi-mei LO (Monnet Chair, National Taipei University)

1. Brandy MILLER (Ghent University): From diplomatic arbitration to economic sway: Examining EU-Taiwan relations in the context of US-China competition.

2. Huanyu ZHAO* (Ghent University) and Xiaoyu PU (University of Nevada): Decouple, de-risk, reconnect China: Knowledge communities in EU foreign policy making.

3. Ya-chi LIN* (Feng Chia University) and Kuo-Chun YEH (Monnet Chair, National Taiwan University): The impact of Russo-Ukrainian war on the EMU’s divergent risk: Empirics and policy implications.

Workshop "Words and Interpretation: Comparative Approaches to Chinese Literature and History"

In the framework of the Taiwan Chair Programme (in a collaboration agreement between Ghent University, the University of Groningen, the Georg-August Universität Göttingen / Georg-August Universität Göttingen Stiftung Öffentliches Rechts, the University of Tartu, and the Department of International and Cross-Strait Education, Ministry of Education, Taiwan), The workshop "Words and Interpretation: Comparative Approaches to Chinese Literature and History" will be held on 31 May and 1 June 2023 (venue: 'De Abt', Lange Kruisstraat 4, 9000 Gent).

Programme DAY 1: 31 MAY

10.00 -11.00

Opening: TBC
Introductory lecture: “Beyond Words and Interpretation” (Bart Dessein, UGent)

11.30-12.30

Digital Humanities Round Table: Hou-leong Ho (East-Asian Department of Berlin State Library): “Introducing Open Access Resources for Sinology and Taiwanese Studies in Taiwan and CrossAsia”

14.00-15.30

Session 1: Culture and Language

Chair: Bart Dessein

Táňa Dluhošová (Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague): “Quantitative study of Taiwanese political elites from the perspective of Taiwanese and Chinese sources”
Peiying Lin (HKU, ONLINE): “Manchuria as a site of cultural exchange: The China-Taiwan literary encounters under Japanese rule”
Mieke Matthyssen (UGent): “Dimensions of ming 命: changing roles of one’s moral mission (tianming天命) and one’s partly malleable fate (mingyun命运) in contemporary China”

16.00-17.30

Session 2: Gendering Chinese History

Chair: Mieke Matthyssen

Jolan Yi (NTU, Taiwan): “Taiwanese widows went to court under Qing rule”
Ping Yao (California State University): “Approaching women’s history and gender history: Mainland China, Taiwan, and beyond”
Shuran Zhang (VUB): “The struggle and dilemmas of the Chinese women’s suffrage movement around the 1911 Revolution”

DAY 2: 1 JUNE

9.30-11.00

Session 3: Historical Interpretations: Late Qing and REPUBLICAN China

Chair: Jolan Yi (or Huanyu Zhao)

Alexandre Tsung-ming Chen (KU Leuven): “The Uprising in the Eastern Rehe in 1891: Different visions and changing interpretations in the historians’ circle of our time”
Jasper Roctus (UGent): “How Sun Xiansheng became Guofu: The KMT’s deification of Sun Yat-sen during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)”
Yang Li (UGent): “Studies and gaps of existing literature on the evolution of diplomatic thought in the late Qing (1840-1914)”

11.30-13.00

Session 4: Political Narratives in contemporary China and Taiwan

Chair: Jasper Roctus

Yuzhou Wang (UGent): “Tracing ‘Chinese School of IR’: Reviewing the interpretations of tianxia in contemporary China and Taiwan”
Huanyu Zhao (UGent), Xiaochuan Sang (Shanghai University of Political Science and Law): “Strategic narratives on cross-Strait relations“
Nanae Baldauff (UNU-CRIS): “Japan's security relationship with China: hovering between political objectives, security concerns and Taiwan issue”

Workshop "Ghent-National Sun Yat-Sen University Dialogues in Global Sinology. Solidarity and Connections in Time of Crisis - 根特-中山國際漢學對話：危機時刻的聯結與凝聚"

30 May 2023

Unit 1 East Asian Modernity

Speaker 1: Ghent University Representative: Bart Dessein

Speaker 2: NSYSU University Representative TBC

Speaker 3: NSYSU University Represenative TBC

Q/A and Discussion Time

Unit 2 Religion as Practice and Philosophy in East Asia

Speaker 1: Ghent University Representative: Mieke Matthyssen

Speaker 2: NSYSU University Representative TBC

Speaker 3: Ghent University Represenative: Yu-Zhou Wang

Over

INTRODUCTION

The last decades of global experience have witnessed the domination of two apparently contradictory tendencies: on the one hand, a process of globalization and concentration of capital on a new, very abstract level far beyond immediate experience; on the other, the decentralization of production and politics accompanied by the emergence of a great number of new social formations, movements, parties and sub-cultures, aiming at rescuing human agency in the name of historical contingency. The uncertainty concerning the nature of modern life and society, engendered by this development, has arguably manifested itself most prominently in the postmodern and postcolonial critique of “grand narratives” and “Eurocentric” or “hegemonic” standpoints and conceptions of historical change, the emphasis on national identity, on cultural diversity, and so on.

The late-Qing statesman and reformer Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837-1909) on board the Beijing-Hankou railway (image: Wikimedia Commons)

These developments are reflected also in paradigmatic shifts of the scholarly discourse about Asia, and they have changed especially the terrain of Asian studies to a degree that can impossibly be neglected or ignored. The research group, ‘East Asian Culture in Perspective: Identity – Historical Consciousness – Modernity’, has been established in order to cope with these above developments and to create a space where it is possible to engage with them in a profound and scholarly fashion. This includes the investigation of the cultural and historical roots of modern East Asian societies as well as the historical consciousness of modern societies. The research group also lays particular emphasis on the history of interaction and exchange within the Asian world.

The great Japanese Sinologist , essayist, and translator Takeuchi Yoshimi 竹内好 (1910-1977) at work in his study (Image: Wikimedia Commons).

In the context of our department, with its long-standing tradition of philology-based cultural and religious studies, the research group 'East Asian Culture in Perspective: Identity – Historical Consciousness – Modernity’ aims at theoritically enganging with established notions such as "history", "culture", "philosophy", "religion", "tradition", as well as the very conceptual divide between "tradition" and "modernity" by putting these notions into a historically determinate perspective. This exercise in reconceptualization is intended to overcome the specific conceptual shortcomings and empirical blind spots that have resulted from the abovementioned paradigmatic shifts in intellectual as well as broader social debates in and about the East-Asian world.

from left to right: Jiang Menglin 蔣夢麟 (1886-1964), Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 (1886-1940), Hu Shi 胡適 (1891-1962), and Li Dazhao 李大釗 (1889-1927) (image: Wikimedia Commons)

The research group 'East Asian Culture in Perspective: Identity - Historical Consciousness - Modernity' is part of the Department Languages and Cultures at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy.