On April 29, 2023, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of its establishment, the Institute of Area Studies, Peking University (PKUIAS) held its third annual doctoral student forum on area studies. Supported by the Postgraduate Education Initiative program of PKU's Graduate School, the forum aimed to enhance communication among young scholars specializing in area studies and encourage them to stand out in their fields and improve their academic level. 

With the theme of “Research for Practical Use: Area Studies from a Dynamic Perspective,” the forum set up three subforums focused respectively on three regions: Russia, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia; West Asia and North Africa; and Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, with the corresponding topics of “What has changed and what has remained the same: Russia, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia from an Interdisciplinary Perspective,” “Construction and Development under Geopolitical Competition: West Asia and North Africa under Great Changes,” and “Regional Cooperation, Institutional Innovation and Social Changes: Knowledge Practice in Southeast Asia from Multiple Perspectives.” The forum in total received papers from 80 doctoral students coming from 40 universities at home and abroad; subsequently, faculty members from various universities and institutions selected 25 papers for presentation by their authors. The forum, held both offline and online, was attended by approximately 210 people.

The opening ceremony, which was held at Peking University Overseas Exchange Center, was attended by Tang Shiqi, Director of PKUIAS and Dean of the School of International Studies; Qian Chengdan, Boya Chair Professor and Professor of the Department of History; Zan Tao, Deputy Director of PKUIAS and Professor of the Department of History; Wang Dan, Deputy Director of PKUIAS and Vice Dean of the School of Foreign Languages; Wang Xiaoyu, Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Foreign Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Guo Jie, Tenured Associate Professor of PKU’s School of International Studies; Sha Zongping, Associate Professor of PKU’s Department of Philosophy; Kong Tao, Associate Research Fellow of PKU’s Institute of Social Science Survey; Wang Lina, Postdoctoral Fellow of PKUIAS; and Dong Yu, Postdoctoral Fellow of PKU’s Department of History. Wang Dan moderated the ceremony.

In his opening speech, Tang Shiqi welcomed the participants, shared his understanding of the essence, connotation and development path of area studies, and expressed his expectation for the successful convening of the forum. Qian Chengdan, the founding director of PKUIAS, gave the keynote speech, in which he analyzed in depth what area studies is, what the discipline of area studies is, the goal of area studies in talent training, and how to train talent.

Guo Jie and Wang Xiaoyu served as commentators for the Russia, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia sub-forum. Eight doctoral students made presentations. Xu Ruidi, from PKU, talked about electronic voting amid the digital transformation of the Russian government in the context of the fourth information revolution. In her opinion, the use of electronic voting reflected the reality that digital technology was becoming a political approach for building the discourse and influence of political parties.

Taking the serious political crisis triggered by the presidential election in Belarus in 2020 and the resurgence of the color revolution as the background for his presentation, Zhang Zhongqian from the People’s Public Security University of China analyzed the strategy of Belarus in countering the color revolution, and pointed out its inspiration for China to prevent and resist color revolutions.

Wang Yizhe from Southeast University reviewed the characteristics of the development of Russian industrial parks and studied the key factors influencing their development; he also offered unique insights into the planning and construction of Chinese overseas industrial parks.

Taking the tank battle in the Russia-Ukraine conflict as an example, Wang Yaozheng, from PKU, talked about how the technology of portable anti-tank weapons affected the relatively weaker side in warfare, pointing out that technology was a double-edged sword and that the international community should seriously think about how the weaker side could use portable anti-tank weapons as an effective weapon.

Chen Diyu from Tsinghua University talked about the role of A. I. Tevkelev in the relationship between Kazakhs and Kalmyks (1731-1733).

Taking the changes in Lithuania’s policies toward Taiwan as an example, Xue Zhenwei, from Xiamen University, talked about the reasons and effects of the changes in the policies of Central and Eastern European countries toward China in recent years, which he believed deserved more attention.

Wang Shiying, from Northeast Normal University, gave a comprehensive analysis of the plan for the reform of secondary vocational education in Russia set to be completed in 2030 based on the program for professionals launched by the Russian government.

Wu Yao, from Capital Normal University, discussed the game of great powers and regional security, taking the Yugoslav coup on March 27, 1941, and the British-German game as examples.

The West Asia and North Africa sub-forum had Zan Tao, Sha Zongping, and Dong Yu as commentators. Eight doctoral students participated. He Yanhui, from PKU, taking the Crimean War as an example, discussed the help of British and French technology and funds in constructing a military information dissemination network in the Ottoman Empire, and analyzed the power tension between the Ottoman Empire and the British and French colonial empires in the process of modernization.

Qin Zheng, from Renmin University of China, took four Iranian political thinkers as examples to clarify the relationship between the intellectual and political theories of conservatives and reformists, namely, how to understand the relationship between the modern Iranian political system and the “the hidden knowledge” of Velayat-e Faqih.

Wang Xinyi, from Beijing Foreign Studies University, shared his study of the mourning activities during the period of Muharram in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar in 1968, revealing that the building of a modernized state implemented by the Pahlavi dynasty gave a serious blow on the traditional power of bazaar merchants, who expressed their political dissatisfaction and protested through religious discourse.

Based on the perspective of social evolution, Zhou Chao, from Renmin University of China, built an evolutionary framework using systemic pressures, disinformation and geographic advantages to explain why the Middle East has long been caught in multiple cycles of war and peace, stagnation and development.

Fan Fan, from PKU, explored the strong contradiction between the preference of modern Iranian women to wear the hijab and the government’s strengthening of the institutionalization of the hijab, and discussed in detail how Iran’s Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution regulated what it regarded as the “undesirable hijab” phenomenon in society through cultural and coercive measures.

Based on the theory of “non-governmental governance,” Huang Yushan, from the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, presented the educational system in the Rojava region, where Kurdish education is predominant and multiple modes of education (Kurdish language teaching, Arabic language teaching) coexist.

Liu Qinglong, from PKU, discussed the development of Saudi finance supported by the US during the Hajj era (1926-1932), the economic crisis period (1932-1945) and the Cold War, taking the first 20 years of Saudi finance as a starting point.

Hu Ruizhi, from Zhengzhou University, re-examined the Tunisian Revolution in terms of the role and participation of the Tunisian General Union, and analyzed the different roles played by the General Union in the pre-, mid-, and post-periods of the Revolution, as well as its positive and negative impacts on the political transition.

The Southeast Asia and South Pacific sub-forum had Kong Tao and Wang Lina as commentators and had nine doctoral student presenters. Zhang Hao, from PKU, pointed out that Lucian Pye’s Southeast Asian studies typically reflected the ideological foundation, cognitive process and theoretical performance of American area studies during the Cold War period, and suggested that Chinese scholars should bear in mind and reflect on the specific history of the birth of area studies when absorbing the Western experience.

Yang Jiaqi, from Sun Yat-sen University, argued that Malaysian Indians, as a key minority voter group in electoral political contests, would continue to play a role in some key constituencies, which highlighted the political importance of that community in Malaysian general elections and their ability to exert influence on the evolution of the Malaysian political landscape.

Zhao Feiyu, from Sun Yat-sen University, analyzed the multiple relationships between the writing and circulation of inscriptions and culture and power in Southeast Asia, arguing that the entire process of cultural import and export in Southeast Asia conveyed order and power, the knowledge practices of inscriptions, knowledge resources and knowledge production.

Based on the two questions of whether Chinese and Japanese official development assistance (ODA) contributed to the economic growth of Myanmar and how effective that assistance was, Yang Yiwen, from Beijing Foreign Studies University, conducted a comparative study of Chinese and Japanese ODA on Myanmar’s domestic economic development.

Zhao Qi, from Yunnan University, presented his study on how to further deepen China-ASEAN cross-border data flow governance cooperation, and discussed the practical issues that China urgently needed to think about and respond to in this area.

Zeng Zheng, from Wuhan University, analyzed the current situation and dilemmas on the digitization of education in Thailand and gave suggestions.

From the perspective of infectious diseases, Wu Yaoting, from Sun Yat-sen University, took infectious diseases as one of the threads running through the history of Southeast Asia and introduced the historical development of Southeast Asia in three dimensions.

Kang Jing, Feng Jun, and Qin Xianjing, from Guangxi Medical University, explored the efficiency of health systems among ASEAN countries and the factors that influenced them.

Tang Ying, from Huazhong Normal University, shared the latest results of the research on China-Indonesia maritime economic cooperation and her insights on China-Indonesia maritime economic cooperation.

After the successful conclusion of each sub-forum, the closing ceremony of the forum was held at Peking University Overseas Exchange Center, with Wang Dan as the moderator. Guo Jie, Sha Zongping and Kong Tao made comments on the presentations and the academic value and the shortcomings of the papers of each sub-forum, and expressed their affirmation of the academic enthusiasm of the students. During the awards ceremony, Wang Dan announced the winners of the outstanding paper awards. The first prize went to Xu Ruidi, Liu Qinglong and Zhao Qi; the second prize went to Xue Zhenwei, Qin Zheng and Yang Jiaqi. Guo Jie, Sha Zongping and Kong Tao presented certificates and prizes to the offline winners. Wang Dan, in the closing speech, expressed her sincere gratitude to the Graduate School of Peking University and all the participants and her hope that the doctoral students could maintain their perseverance and dedication to academics, keep their righteousness and sincerity, and create a bright future for the discipline of area studies.

Over the past five years, PKUIAS, as a pioneer of area studies in the country, has always adhered to the orientation of basic research and carried out fundamental and forward-looking research on major countries, major regions and major issues in the world. An area studies paradigm with Chinese characteristics and the advantages of PKU is being formed, contributing to China’s area studies and international academic exchanges and development. It is believed that in the future, the forum will continue to develop and mature, attracting more young scholars interested in area studies, and will produce a series of academic results with interdisciplinary perspectives and practical significance, which will contribute to the vigorous development of the discipline of area studies in China through the exchange and collision of ideas.