Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

Keynote lecture for the workshop The political economy of latecoming in the digital era: The case of rising standards powers. Moderated by Dr. Daniel Fuchs (HU Berlin).
 

More than any other country India epitomizes the extent to which the internationalisation of services goes hand in hand with the rise of the digital economy. Most studies portraying the success story of business process outsourcing in India and their prominence worldwide convey a State/market divide. The presentation contends that the picture would be incomplete without taking account of standards. Moreover, it reconsiders conventional accounts that relational and intangible services are hard to standardise and, hence, internationalise. The Indian office of the world codifies and disaggregates all sorts of tasks into discrete processes likely to be assessed against distinct quality and security standards. The presentation conceives such standards as reflecting broader forms of transnational hybrid authority. Such authority is not thoroughly private, let alone exclusively public; it includes major socio-political concerns behind a veil of technical specifications; and its exposure to global market forces intermingles with domestic incentive policies. 
 

Bio:

Jean-Christophe Graz is Professor of international relations at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (IEP) of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, co-founder of the Centre of International History and Political Studies of Globalization (CRHIM), and currently Visiting Professor at the Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, as Mercator Fellow of the DFG Research Training Group ‘Standards of Governance’. He has worked for over twenty years on regulation issues in global political economy. His research focuses on transnational private governance, international standards, service offshoring, and more recently on labour and sustainability standards, risk and uncertainty, platform capitalism, and digital traceability in global supply chains. His book The Power of Standards: Hybrid authority and the Globalisation of Services (Cambridge University Press, 2019 – Open Access) received the Joan Robinson Prize for the best monograph from the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE). 

une 23rd and June 24th

Studying 'Global China' presents unique challenges. For researchers trained in Sinology, engaging with China's global entanglements requires new methodological approaches. For those from social science backgrounds, language barriers and limited historical or cultural knowledge can complicate research on China's global influence. At the same time, scholars face increasing restrictions within the PRC and contentious debates in Western countries about the risks and benefits of academic cooperation. The "Studying Global China" workshop offers a platform to explore these challenges, reflect on research approaches, and exchange fieldwork experiences. Connect with fellow scholars over coffee and snacks, listen to inspiring lectures on current issues, and learn with and from each other: Who is working on what? What are your fieldwork experiences? Join us for two days of debate and networking at Humboldt University Berlin!

This year's workshop features Ching Kwan Lee as keynote speaker. Professor Lee teaches Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and is widely known for her book The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor and Foreign Investment in Africa (2017). She currently edits the Cambridge Elements in Global China series and co-convenes the Global Hong Kong Studies @UC initiative. In addition, the two-day workshop will include lectures by, among others, Yuka Kobayashi (SOAS & DGAP), Bertram Lang (Philipps-Universität Marburg) and Heejin Lee (Yonsei University). Moreover, based on participants' interests, there will be space for informal sessions on specific topics.

Participation is open to PhD students, postdocs, and other interested Berlin-based scholars. M.A./M.Sc. students may also join, depending on available capacity. Registration is possible until May 31, 2025.

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Would you like to receive feedback on your research project in a small group setting with C. K. Lee?

We invite PhD students to submit a one-page summary of their research project (350–500 words). Your submission should outline your research question, methodology, current stage of research, and the status of your data collection. The workshop is open to all PhD students, with a preference for those in the early stages of planning, about to begin fieldwork, or who have recently conducted fieldwork. Please send your one-pager via email to merle.groneweg@hu-berlin.de

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Program

Monday, June 23rd, 2025

09:00 am Arrival & Coffee
09:15 am Welcome & Introduction 
09:30 am  Researching Global China: A Primer (Ching Kwan Lee, UCLA)
11:30 am  Coffee Break
12:00 pm  The Rise of China in International Standardization and the Geopolitics of (Digital) Standards: Research Agenda
(Heejin Lee, Yonsei University)   
01:00 pm  Lunch  
02:00 pm  Global China – in the study of China and World Order (Yuka Kobayashi, SOAS & DGAP)
03:30 pm  Coffee Break  
04:00 pm Global China in the Philanthropy World: A Mixed-Methods Exploration (Bertram Lang, Philipps-Universität Marburg; comments by Christian Straube, Stiftung Mercator)
05:30 pm  Closing
 

Tuesday, June 24th, 2025

09:00 am Arrival & Coffee
09:30 am  Info Session on Scholarships (N.N., DAAD)
11:00 am  Coffee Break 
11:30 am  PhD projects: Discussion with C. K. Lee
// Research presentations (parallel session)
01:00 pm  Lunch  
02:00 pm  PhD projects: Discussion with C. K. Lee   
// Research presentations (parallel session)
03:30 pm  Coffee Break  
04:00 pm  How To Fieldwork: Informal Group Discussion
05:30 pm  Closing
07:00 pm Public Event (more infos soon)

Register here!

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Lectures & Workshops
 

Monday, June 23rd, 09:30 am - 11:30 am 
Researching Global China: A Primer (Ching Kwan Lee, UCLA)

How does one go about researching global China? This talk offers theoretical and methodological suggestions to scholars interested in documenting and analyzing China's multi-faceted global engagement. We will first discuss two broad approaches in the field of Global China Studies in which scholars either focus on (1) grand strategy, elite discourses and aggregate tendencies or (2) granular dynamics of locality specific cases. Then, we will explore how empirical research can be formulated to move beyond this bifurcation by pursue "extensions" to theory, comparison, connection and circulation.

Dr. Ching Kwan Lee is professor in the department of Sociology at UCLA. She is a sociologist working at the intersection of global and comparative issues, including labor, political sociology, global development, decolonization, comparative ethnography, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Africa. She is the series editor of Cambridge Elements in Global China, and a convener of the Global Hong Kong Studies @UC initiative.

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Monday, June 23rd, 12:00 pm - 1:00pm 
The Rise of China in International Standardization and the Geopolitics of (Digital) Standards: Research Agenda (Heejin Lee, Yonsei University)  

China has emerged as a major player in international standardization, particularly in the field of ICT, since the early 2000s. While technical standards were once primarily the concern of engineers and industry, they have increasingly become geopolitical and strategic issues — especially those related to digital, critical, and emerging technologies — and are even subject to securitization. This presentation briefly explores China’s evolution in ICT standardization and the dynamics of global competition in this field. It concludes with a brainstorming session on potential research agendas.

Dr. Heejin Lee is a Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University, where he directs the Centers for International Standardization and Digital Trade. His research interests include standards and standardization, as well as Digital for Development (D4D). His recent work focuses on the geopolitics of standards, particularly those related to digital and critical and emerging technologies (CET).

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Monday, June 23rd, 02:00 pm - 3:30 pm 
Global China – in the study of China and World Order (Yuka Kobayashi, SOAS & DGAP)

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Digital Silk Road (DSR), Space Corridor (SC), and Chinese activities in the UN and the WTO offer interesting case studies in unpacking China in World Order. Most research on China and World Order tends to examine the topic from a macro perspective in international relations.  However, utilising 'global China' and conducting fieldwork and ethnographic research in the study of China in the BRI, DSR, SC, the UN and the WTO has the potential to generate an interesting kaleidoscope of case studies that offer new perspectives on China and World Order. 

Dr. Yuka Kobayashi is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in China and International Politics. She is currently on leave (academic year 2024-2025) as a British Academy Global Innovation Fellow in the German Council for Foreign Relations (DGAP) based at their Centre for Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and Technology. Previously, she was a junior research fellow at Oxford University, a visiting scholar at the World Trade Organization, and a visiting research professor at Nankai University. Yuka studied law with a specialization in Public International Law at Kyoto University and completed an MPhil and DPhil in international relations at Oxford University.

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Monday, June 23rd, 04:00 pm - 5:30 pm 
Global China in the Philanthropy World: A Mixed-Methods Exploration (Bertram Lang, Philipps-Univerisität Marburg; Comments by Christian Straube, Stiftung Mercator)

This session examines the transnational politics shaping the development of philanthropy in China—a field marked by notable paradoxes. Historically denounced as a capitalist and imperialist practice, philanthropy re-emerged during the reform era under the significant influence of international models and actors. However, this revival soon provoked increasing party-state concerns about foreign interference. More recently, the state has promoted the "healthy and orderly development" of domestic philanthropy while encouraging its international expansion to project Chinese "kindness" abroad. This outward turn coincides with tightening restrictions on civil society and international NGOs within China, even as U.S.-based philanthrocapitalists continue to receive preferential treatment in Beijing and Chinese tech philanthropists articulate global ambitions to revolutionise the sector. This session demonstrates how integrating diverse data sources with qualitative and quantitative methods can illuminate these complex dynamics and offer insights into the interplay between local and global, organisational and policy dimensions in the rise of Chinese philanthropy as a transnational phenomenon of global significance.

Dr. Bertram Lang is a postdoctoral researcher at Philipps University Marburg and currently a Mercator Fellow for International Affairs with the International Institute for Sustainable Development in Geneva. His research relies on mixed-method approaches to study the transnational politics of Global China in the non-profit sector, (anti-)corruption and resource governance. After obtaining his PhD degree in Political Science from Goethe University Frankfurt with a thesis on non-profit actors in Chinese foreign and development policy, Bertram served as Visiting Professor for the Economy and Society of China at the University of Göttingen in 2023-2024.

Dr. Christian Straube is a project manager at Stiftung Mercator's Centre for Europe in the World and in charge of its China portfolio. He holds a PhD in Ethnology from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and a master's degree in modern Sinology from Heidelberg University. Christian is working on China literacy in Europe and civil society dialogue in the context of Global China. He conducted fieldwork for the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology on the Chinese-run copper mine in Luanshya, Zambia, in 2015-2016 and wrote a master's thesis on British Malaya's Overseas Chinese and the Xinhai Revolution in 2011-2012.

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Tuesday, June 24th, 2025

Tuesday, June 24th, 9:30 am - 11:00 am 
Info Session on Scholarships

An overview on China-related scholarships available for PhD students (more info soon).

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Tuesday, June 24th, 11:30am - 1pm // 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm (parallel sessions x2)
PhD projects: Discussion with C. K. Lee

Would you like to receive feedback on your research project in a small group setting with C. K. Lee? We invite PhD students to submit a one-page summary of their research project (350–500 words). Your submission should outline your research question, methodology, current stage of research, and the status of your data collection. The workshop is open to all PhD students, with a preference for those in the early stages of planning, about to begin fieldwork, or who have recently conducted fieldwork. Please send your one-pager via email to merle.groneweg@hu-berlin.de

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Group Sessions: Research Presentations
In a relaxed group setting, this session offers participants the opportunity to present their research, exchange ideas, and give and receive constructive feedback.

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Tuesday, June 24th, 4:00 pm - 5:30pm 
How To Fieldwork: Group Discussion

In a relaxed group setting, this session offers participants the opportunity to discuss their fieldwork experience.
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Tuesday, June 24th, 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Public event

More info soon!

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Register here!