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We are happy to see that after a year and a half of online meetings, CHERN could organize several face-to-face meetings again. Agnes Szunomar, WG1 Leader, organized a hybrid meeting with WG 3 in Leuven, and hosted the CHERN Core Group meeting in Budapest. |
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Between 7-9 September, after one and a half year of online meetings, WG 1 (Strategic sectors and infrastructure development) finally organized a face-to-face (partly hybrid) paper development workshop at the Irish College Leuven, Belgium. When planning the event, we chose this location as it provides accommodation, meeting rooms and a restaurant, so as a result we could create some form of 'Covid bubble' that provided us the opportunity to meet in person, yet keeping us safe even if there is an uptake in COVID cases. The event, that was co-organized by WG3, went really well with a keynote-speech delivered by Giles Mohan (The Open University), with 17 presentations in 5 sessions. WG1 members' presentations were focusing on the topic "Infrastructure Connectivity in Europe with Chinese characteristics", dealing with the aspects of - among others - transportation, digitalisation, and energy. The whole event was fully accessible online, via Zoom, for those CHERN members interested in the topics. Connected to this meeting, as well as the online events organized before, WG1 plans to publish a special issue. We had preliminary discussions with the Asia-Europe Journal, and they seem to be interested in the topic. Besides the special issue, based on the recent online discussion among members, WG1 plans to focus more on the climate change-related aspects of Chinese investments and construction projects in Europe. In addition, together with the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungary, I hosted a CHERN core group meeting in Budapest on October 11 and 12. The COST Action leadership had only online meetings in the past one and a half year, since the Lisbon meeting, consequently it was good to see each other face-to-face, evaluate the past period, prepare to the Management Committee meeting, and discuss the progress and plans of the CHERN Action.
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Adapting to the new way of meeting and enhancing ideas during the global pandemic, in January 2021 CHERN launched its Online Series. Due to its success, CHERN will continue to organize the online Distinguished Lectures, Research Highlights and Research and Communication Skills Workshops.
The dates and speakers for the next cycle of our online series will be announced soon!
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Latest events in the CHERN Online Series
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How the EU and China can compete and cooperate for a green future?
The CHERN Online Series started its 3rd cycle of events with a lecture by Dr Janka Oertel, Director of the Asia Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Climate superpowers: How the EU and China can compete and cooperate for a green future?
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Careful or Careless? Central and Eastern Europe’s position on China and 5G
The third Research Highlights event in our Online Series was a presentation by Ivana Karásková, Founder and Leader of MapInfluenCE and China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe (CHOICE) projects and an in-house China Research Fellow at the Association for International Affairs (AMO) in Prague, Czech Republic.
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Influencing policymakers – making your China research count by Charles Parton The third cycle of our Online Series concluded with another CHERN research and communication skills workshop entitled Influencing policymakers – making your China research count. The workshop was held by Charles Parton, Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank and former British diplomat. Through this workshop, participants learned how to communicate academic research to a policy-oriented audience – a much-needed skill in today’s world!
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CHERN and the Finnish University Network for Asian Studies are organizing a Webinar on Digital China Research in Social Sciences as part of the Training School that CHERN will organize next year.
Date and time: 19 November 2021 at 9:00-10:30 CET
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Virtual Mobility Grants
Adjusting to the intensification of online cooperation, COST has enabled CHERN to define a Virtual Networking Strategy (VNS) and VM grants are an important part of that plan. VM aims to provide opportunities for collaboration between researchers based in Europe, China and the US, in order to develop research partnerships, forge linkages between academics and stakeholders, and stimulate knowledge creation and virtual research mobility of Early Career Investigators, PhD students and young professionals.
During Grant Period 2, four applicants were granted the Virtual Mobility Grants:
Agnes Szunomar and Indrajit Roy for the joint publications on "Affective investments: European responses to China’s pandemic diplomacy", Gaston Fornes for the joint publication "The use of technology to achieve SDG by female entrepreneurs", and Steven Rolf for the research collaboration "Getting the logistics right: Chinese digital haulage platforms and the race for Eurasian integration". All grantees reported positive outcomes of there collaborations. The reports are currently under review.
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Gather Town
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During the online MC meeting on 11 October 2021, CHERN MC members could meet and network in Gather Town (gather.town). Gather Town is a virtual room with the ability to move around and interact with other participants based on your locations in the room, just like real life.
This pilot is part of the CHERN Virtual Networking Strategy. Participants in the MC networking event in gather.town mainly learned how to use the platform and tried out some basic features. Some faced technical difficulties, others just perceived it as a game and had a lot of fun. All in all, gather.town is a good platform for informal and spontaneous encounters. We will continue to offer networking opportunities in gather.town in Grant Period 3.
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Call for Rapid Short Term Scientific Missions
In Grant Period 3, we will have new opportunities for Rapid STSMs. In November, we will also send out a call for hosts. Keep an eye on your mailbox!
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Call for ITC Grants
To foster the career development of junior scholars from less research-intensive countries, a call for applications for Inclusiveness Target Country Conference Grants has been launched. The grants are intended to support researchers’ participation in conferences, including virtual conference fees.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
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Working Group Activities
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Working Group 1: meeting and special issue
Between 7-9 September, after one and a half year of online meetings, WG 1 (Strategic sectors and infrastructure development) finally organized a face-to-face (partly hybrid) paper development workshop at the Irish College Leuven, Belgium. the event was co-organized with WG 3. The whole event was fully accessible online, via Zoom, for those CHERN members interested in the topics. Connected to this meeting, as well as the online events organized before, WG1 plans to publish a special issue. In addition, based on the recent online discussion among members, WG1 plans to focus more on the climate change-related aspects of Chinese investments and construction projects in Europe.
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Working Group 2: webinar series and stakeholder workshop
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Working Group 2 (High-technology and innovation) met in Brussels in September 2021 for a paper workshop on China’s digital power. The workshop was a follow up of the monthly webinars that WG leader Tim Ruhlig organized from September 2020 until June 2021. There will be a policy brief with a few take-a-ways from the workshop. In addition, the participants are currently working on a joint publication by CHERN and Digital Power China (DGP), which contains the contributions to the workshops, and the policy papers that came out of this. WG 2 will continue organizing the webinar series, the working group is currently thinking about net themes and topics beyond the scope of digital power China. The working group aims to organize another stakeholder workshop about these new themes.
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Working Group 3: meetings and webinars
In September, Working Group 3 (Financial investments, real estate and services), organized a joint event with WG1 for crossover between finance and infrastructure in Leuven. WG members are keen to organize one meeting around the turn of the year, and another joint event with one of the other working groups. In addition, the working group will continue organizing webinars. The working group will work to attract researchers who focus on real estate and RMB internationalization.
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Working Group 4: CHERN Bar and roundtable
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Working Group 4 (Public diplomacy and knowledge production) is looking back on the hybrid meeting "Addressing the emerging New Cold War narrative on China – the role and space of European academics". The workshop took place in September, in Berlin (C-Space) and online. Members of the WG will continue working and thinking about the topic in various ways.
As a result of the successful online activities organized over Grand period 2, WG 4 will keep organizing ‘CHERN bars’, unmoderated online discussions focusing on certain problem areas. The upcoming CHERN bar is scheduled on 25th Nov. 17:00 - 18:30 CET, and is entitled “Education Wars: China vs. UK”, initial input will be provided by WG member Austin Williams. The CHERN bar is open to all CHERN members, who will receive an invitation by e-mail to register for the event. Not a CHERN member yet? You can join CHERN here. In addition, WG 4 hosts a panel discussion about the EU-China relations after the German elections, on 6 December 2021, 16:00-17:30 CET. The event is open for the general public.
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Working Group 5: plans for Grant Period 3
As WG members of Working Group 5 (Labour and Migration) are dealing with migration, it has been difficult to do fieldwork during the pandemic. Despite this challenge, the working group is planning to organize a renewed series of activities for research once people start moving again. Working group members would like to organize workshops on the role of BRI in migration and shifting inter-ethnic relations across the range of themes (labour, tourism, elite migration, inter-ethnic relations, and educational migration) within WG 5. In addition to the workshops, the working group will work on the methodological implications of the pandemic on migration research. The working group has plans for an STSM about Chinese investments in a major manufacturing facility in South Eastern Europe.
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Recent publications by CHERN members
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The first CHERN Special Issue
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"The Wind from the East. China and the Future of Europe" - Special Issue of Development and Change
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Alami, I., Dixon, A. D., Gonzalez-Vicente, R., Babic, M., Lee, S. O., Medby, I. A., & Graaff, N. D. (2021). Geopolitics and the ‘new’state capitalism. Geopolitics, 1-29.
Brennan, L. (2021). Investors in China should look carefully at the risks, Financial Times, July 28. Brennan, L. (2021). China courts an uncertain future for its economy, Financial Times, October 01. Brennan, L., & Vecchi, A. (2021). The European response to Chinese outbound foreign direct investment: introducing a dynamic analytical framework. Development and Change, 52(5), 1066–1089. Cao, N., Giordan, G., & Yang, F. (Eds.). (2020). Chinese religions going global. Brill.
de Graaff, N., & Valeeva, D. (2021). Emerging Sino–European Corporate Elite Networks. Development and Change, 52(5), 1147-1173.
Gledić, J. (2021). The role of culture in order-building: Lessons from China’s engagement on the borders of the EU. In China-EU Relations in a New Era of Global Transformation (pp. 255-272). Routledge.
Henderson, J., & Hooper, M. (2021). China and European innovation: corporate takeovers and their consequences. Development and Change, 52(5), 1090–1121. Henderson, J., Feldmann, M., & Graaff, N. (2021). The wind from the east: china and european economic development. Development and Change, 52(5), 1047–1065. https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12678 Hooijmaaijers, B. (2021). A comparative analysis of the role of the state in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean investment in the EU. Asia Europe Journal, (20210521). Kaufmann, L., (2021). Prefiguring China’s Digital Silk Road to Europe: Connecting Switzerland. 19 October 2021. In Transformations: Downstream Effects of the BRI blog, Belt and Road in Global Perspective, the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.
Kirkulak-Uludag, B., & Safarzadeh, O. (2021). Exploring shock and volatility transmission between oil and Chinese industrial raw materials. Resources Policy, 70. Lv, P., Curran, L., Spigarelli, F., & Barbieri, E. (2021). One country, many industries: heterogeneity of chinese ofdi motivations at meso level. China Economic Review, 69. Pál, N. (2021). 22. Chinese Correspondents around the World. In F. Pieke (Ed.), Global East Asia: Into the Twenty-First Century (pp. 271-279). Berkeley: University of California Press. Peragovics, T., Szunomár, Á. (2021). China in the Western Balkans: geopolitics with Chinese characteristics? In Varga, G; Molnár, T L (szerk.) Western Balkans Playbook: Competition for Influence of Foreign Actors. Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Hungary, pp. 139-166 Rodrigues, I., & Gaspar, S. (2021). The Presence of China and the Chinese Diaspora in Portugal and Portuguese-Speaking Territories: An Introduction. In The Presence of China and the Chinese Diaspora in Portugal and Portuguese-Speaking Territories (pp. 1-20). Brill. Santiago, A (2021). The Health Silk Road and its role in the sphere of global health governance. In review Rotas a Oriente. Revista de estudos sino-portugueses (ISSN: 2184-9900), pp. 107-118;
Svetlicinii, A. (2021). Consolidation of the state-owned enterprises in china: a missed opportunity for the eu merger control? Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, (20211002).
Svetlicinii, A. (2021). The Belt and Road Initiative and state-owned enterprises: Is it time for reform of the EU merger control?. In The European Union and China's Belt and Road (pp. 96-113). Routledge. Szunomár, Á. (2021). Hungary - country profile. The People’s Map of Global China
Yin, W., Zhu, Z., Kirkulak-Uludag, B., & Zhu, Y. (2021). The determinants of green credit and its impact on the performance of Chinese banks. Journal of Cleaner Production, 286.
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Activities by CHERN members
Anabela Santiago organized a conference named "Health and Wellbeing New Silk Road Conference: Innovation, Cooperation and Tourism" (University of Aveiro/Confucius Institute /ANRS - Portugal); and participated as a speaker in the 12th International Convention of Asia Scholars Theme: "Health Silk Road: A Chinese Tool towards Global Governance?"
Agnes Szunomar (WG1 Leader) gave a presentation named "Engaging with China through the Digital Silk Road: the case of Central and Eastern Europe" at the 51st University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) Annual Conference 2021; presented " 'Fuelling' Knowledge-Intensive Manufacturing By Internationalisation? The Role of the Chinese State in Shaping the Competitiveness of the New Energy Vehicles Sector" -at the16th European Association for Comparative Economic Studies (EACES) Conference; and gave a presentation about "Emerging Market Multinationals in European Peripheries: the Case of Chinese FDI in East Central Europe" at the 7th Copenhagen Conference on Emerging Market Multinationals: Outward Investment from Emerging Economies Jeffrey Henderson and Naná de Graaff, CHERN Vice Chair and Chair, organized a panel at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) in June. Together with several other CHERN members (e.g. Nicholas Jepson and Adam Dixon), they presented contributions to the first CHERN Special Issue: "The Wind from the East. China and the Future of Europe", which are published in Development and Change.
Jelena Gledić, CHERN Science communication manager, co-organized with Marijk van der Wende the summer school “Internationalisation Challenged – Rethinking Global Higher Education”. The summer school was followed up by the conference International Higher Education and Global Science – EU-China relations in a Changing World Order. Jelena Gledić and Working Group member Qiao Congrui (WG4) gave a presentation about "Young Scholars’ perspectives on the future research agenda", and CHERN chair Naná de Graaff participated in the panel "External views and responses".
Naná de Graaff organized a CHERN panel at SASE 2021 Virtual Conference, on July 5, introducing our special issue The Wind from the East (for Development and Change), together with Jeffrey Henderson, Nick Jepson, Imogen Liu, Adam Dixon and other CHERN members: https://sase.confex.com/sase/2021/meetingapp.cgi/Program/1244 Nana de Graaff was invited as a speaker to present CHERN during the EU-KNOC 6th ad-hoc meeting conference, 2 June 2021.
Naná de Graaff was invited as a speaker at the Antwerp Summer University International Relations in a post-hegemonic world Organised by the ECPR Standing Group on International Relations (SGIR), 12 July, 2021, Plenary session: International cooperation and institutions, Coordinated by Dirk De Bièvre (Antwerp). About Sino-Western relations in a post-hegemonic world. With Thomas Risse and Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni. Nana de Graaff was invited as a speaker at the Utrecht Summer School: Internationalisation Challenged – Rethinking Global Higher Education on China-Europe relations, geopolitics and higher education, August 17, 2021, Theme 2: Sustaining the global common good, shared values, and open science, How can higher education respond to the changing geopolitics? With Prof. Dr. Shi Jinghuan (Tsinghua University).
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