The rapid economic development of recent decades has made China a destination for migrants from all parts of the world. What does Chinese migration policy say about the priorities and functioning of this global power? PhD candidate Tabitha Speelman has conducted research on this.

Yujing Tan is a lecturer at the Institute for Area Studies and International Studies. Yujing Tan doesn't have a desk at the university. Please send an email if you want to contact her. The above mentioned telephone number is the number of the secretariat.

Steven Frost defended his thesis on 6 June 2017

When Petra Sijpesteijn became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, she was the only Dutch member with an appointment at a Dutch university. Two years later, she is also the only Dutch member of the Austrian Academy and officially joined the British Academy on 7 October.

When Henriëtte Hoffman was ten years old she was enthralled by The Last Emperor, a 1987 film about the twelfth and last emperor of the Manchu dynasty. It was an interest that eventually led to a five-month stay in Chengde in China for her Asian Studies research master’s programme. During her time in…

After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the Islamic Empire expanded at a tremendous pace. Within a hundred years, it stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian subcontinent. How did such a rapidly conquered territory become one empire? Professor Petra Sijpesteijn has been awarded a Vici grant…

I am a historian of late medieval and early modern China (14-18th c.). I am mostly interested in exploring the history of Chinese political institutions, literati culture, and gender and family. My current research is focused on examining the intersection of bureaucracy, law, and society in the Ming…

Florian Schneider's research interests include questions of governance and public administration in the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, political communication strategies and political content of popular Chinese entertainment, recent Chinese economic developments, as well as Chinese foreign policy. He…

The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (AIBL), one of the five academies that make up the Institut de France, has elected professor Petra Sijpesteijn as foreign corresponding member (correspondant étranger), to fill the seat of the renowned Egyptologist Edda Bresciani.

Limin Teh (PhD, Chicago, 2014) is University Lecturer in Modern Chinese History at Leiden University. Her research examines industrial work, capital, and empire in modern East Asia, with a focus on mining, global labor standards, and reproductive labor.

Gina van Ling is a lecturer at the BA International Studies and is affiliated with the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS). She has a background in Sinology and Law.

Friso Stevens, External PhD candidate at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) at Leiden University, wrote in de Volkskrant on the Chinese investment drive.

Chinese export paintings have a much greater cultural-historical and artistic value than was previously thought in the Netherlands, according to external PhD candidate Rosalien van der Poel. She advocates making these works accessible to the general public. PhD defence 30 November.

In its session of 15 April 2024, the Austrian Academy of Sciences elected professor Petra Sijpesteijn as one of its new Corresponding Members.

Ying-ting Wang is Lecturer and PhD candidate at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies.

On Tuesday 3 September 2024 Straton Papagianneas successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Wenxin Wang defended her thesis on 26 October 2016

Chenyu Cheng defended her thesis on 6 April 2017.

When Daan van Esch, master’s student in Chinese Studies, travelled through China last summer, he noticed that he often did not understand what the inhabitants of the different villages and cities were talking about. There turned out to be huge differences within the language. He decided to map this…

Xinrong Ma defended her thesis on 13 February 2018

This remarkable statement appears in Yi-Wen Cheng’s dissertation on state monopoly and forms of competition in the Chinese tobacco industry. Cheng presents her conclusions and looks back on her fieldwork. ‘I had to accept a lot of drinks in order to establish a network of contacts.’

In the interests of knowledge exchange and research, a delegation from the China Academy of Chinese Medicinal Sciences (CACMS) in Beijing paid a visit to the Hortus botanicus in Leiden. The visit was part of a joint research study on herbal medicine.

The emissions of the Chinese industrial sector alone comprise 24.1% of global emissions (7.8 GtCyr−1 in 2015). This makes Chinese industrial emissions of unique national and international relevance in climate policy. This study reports a literature survey that quantitatively describes the evolution…

Corona travel restrictions and increased political pressure: research into China has become considerably more difficult in recent years. University lecturer and China researcher Rogier Creemers does not let this put him off. He receives an NWO grant to screen policy documents using digital technique…

A project aimed at understanding the complicated process of religious transformation in one of the centres of the early Muslim world.

The Faculty of Science celebrated the Chinese New Year on 26 January, with an event that was organised together with the Leiden Science China community. After a warm welcome and New Year Wishes by Dean Geert de Snoo, visitors could participate in various activities, such as a calligraphy lesson.

On Friday 15 November 2024 Chunli Song successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Help us develop and expand the recently established Leiden Chinese Queer Collection (LCQC, 莱顿华语酷儿文献收藏) at Leiden University Libraries (UBL).

Last February, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) acquired a rare Chinese manuscript dating back to the Ming Dynasty. Three Chinese Studies students got the opportunity to decipher the edict (dated 1582) during their internships. In this UBLpodcast they share their findings.

Leiden University strengthens the collaboration with the Chinese Xi’an Jiaotong University. The Chinese delegation visited the Faculty of Science to talk about collaborations in the field of life science and data science.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has been able to acquire an exceptional two-volume Miao album. The acquisition was made possible by the Rombouts Fund for Chinese collections. The extraordinarily well-preserved work contains 70 full-page paintings on silk, depicting non-Chinese peoples in the area…

Jue Wang is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies. Jue is a scholar of Chinese economy and Global Political Economy. With a regional focus on China, her areas of expertise include international political economy, development finance, international organisations, technology…

Leiden University is working increasingly closely with Chinese universities. On 22 November the Rector signed a statement of intent to ratify the relationship with Xi’an Jiaotong University. Shanghai International Studies University is to include Leiden University as a strategic partner institution…

New Chinese CSC PhD’s are welcomed at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry. On the 28th of September 2012 a three week introduction program started especially for this new incoming group of scientists.

On 19 September 2023 Tabitha Speelman successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The hinterland of important centres like Petra (Southern Jordan) can provide essential information that contribute to the understanding of their rise, expansion and decline.

A fascinating description of a global language, A Grammar of Mandarin by Jeroen Wiedenhof combines broad perspectives with illuminating depth.

Casper Wits is a University Lecturer in the Institute for Area Studies. His research focuses on postwar diplomatic and international history in East Asia, with a special interest in the development of Chinese and Japanse foreign policy and Sino-Japanese relations in this period. He also takes an interest…

Svetlana Kharchenkova is Assistant Professor at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies.

Jingjing Cao is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology.

Jingwen Liao is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology, funded by the China Scholarship Council.

China’s internet giants like Alibaba and Tencent go global. However, Alibaba shares its data with the Chinese state. The state links the Chinese social credit system to consumer’s profiles. What if Alibaba takes over the market?

On Wednesday 25 June 2025 Dechun Zhang successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

International scholarly publisher Brill has released the most complete and up-to-date reference work on the Chinese language available today. Prof.dr. Rint Sybesma oversaw the project as Editor-in-Chief.

A high-ranking delegation from China visited Leiden on 6 November. The party of some 25 officials from the CPPCC – a Chinese advisory body comparable with the Dutch Senate - visited the Leiden Observatory, the Hortus Botanicus and the Asian Library.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) recently participated in the Pagode-Europeana-China project as an associated partner. As a result, almost two hundred items related to China from the UBL Special Collections are now available via the Europeana website. The UBL was the only library to participate in…

During his two-day visit to the Netherlands, the Chinese Prime Minister paid an unexpected visit to Leiden on 16 October. Li Keqiang spoke with Rector Carel Stolker, Chinese PhD candidates and students of China Studies.

Personalised healthcare could be the answer to insufficient treatment of chronically ill people. Therefore, PhD Junzeng Fu tries to predict the response of a patient to a drug. Strikingly, she combines western medicine with Chinese medicine diagnosis. Promotion Tuesday 21 February.

How were ideas about politics and society distributed in ancient China? Hilde De Weerdt, Professor of Chinese History, investigates this using new digital methods. We speak with her about networks, big data and digital humanities.