WG 4: Public diplomacy and knowledge production
Chinese public diplomacy has been very much in the focus for the past decade, and the latest Covid crisis has just added relevance to the topic. The working group is looking into the broad spectrum of public diplomacy, starting from Chinese theories of international relations and their promotion (and international reception), through the more “classical” means of cultural diplomacy, to new strategies of the Chinese media abroad (increased media presence, new discursive frameworks, social media activities, media ethics).
The working group also wishes to cover the area of knowledge production, as China is investing greatly into education and research infrastructures abroad, while at the same time research cooperations have become increasingly difficult. A Chinese domestic system for academic evaluation running parallel with extensive Chinese higher education export are phenomena we in the EU need to see and react to. All these topics will be viewed in the current context of US-China rivalry and the expected aftermath of the Covid crisis.
Photo by courtesy of Carsten Fleck
Coordinator: Dr. Agota Revesz
Center for Cultural Studies on Science and Technology in China (CCST)
Technische Universität Berlin
Agota Revesz currently works as a research associate at the China Center, Technical University Berlin. She holds two separate degrees, one in sinology, another one in theatre directing. After having been involved in several China-related cultural and educational projects, she served as attaché for culture and education in Shanghai representing her native Hungary. Apart from her expertise in Chinese cultural diplomacy she also conducts research on Chinese soft power in a broader sense, Chinese media and EU-China relations. At the China Center TUB she is responsible for a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) targeting to raise the “China competence” of students and staff to prepare them for future China cooperation in the areas of science and technology. She is currently writing about the “political economy” of traditional Chinese theatre – a book project she started earlier at Freie Universität Berlin.
Co-leader: Magnus Feldmann
University of Bristol
Magnus Feldmann is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. He holds a PhD from Harvard University. His research and publications focus on political economy and post-communist politics, including capitalist diversity, economic globalization and power. His articles have appeared in World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Government and Opposition, Communist and Post-Communist Studies and various other journals and edited volumes.
