China makes no secret of its ambitions to become the world’s leading nation. What can we expect now that the EU and the rest of the world are in recession? And why did President Donald Trump suspend US funding to the World Health Organization? Rob de Wijk, Professor of International Relations and Security…

Since 2009-2010, the West viewed China as more assertive. Especially after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the country abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s ‘low profile’ foreign policy. Friso Stevens explains in his dissertation where this change has come from. The dissertation defence is on 28 March.

The Faculty of Science has reinforced the collaboration in China during a group trip late November. Representatives from four institutes visited ten Chinese top universities and interviewed over 130 students in PhD workshops in Beijing and Shanghai.

The commercial media in China are more likely to promote the stability of the regime than to undermine it. Political scientist Daniela Stockmann analyses in her new book, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China why this is the case. ‘Many journalists do not want a disrupted society.’

On Friday 13 May, President Xu Xianming of Shandong University (SDU) visited Leiden. Leiden University and Shandong University have a long-lasting partnership, a co-operation that was recently reinforced by the setting up of the Confucius Institute in Leiden (CILU) during Prof. Van der Heijden’s visit…

Tensions ran high last week after China published a list on Wednesday of $50 billion in American products that would be hit by tariffs; a direct response to the United States' decision to implement $50 billion of tariffs on Chinese products. Could this be the start of a new trade war? And if so, what…

The Leiden University Labour Law Department started a new cooperation with the Law School of the China University of Labor Relations in Beijing. The agreement was signed by Dean prof. Jiang Ying during the visit of her delegation on 19 September 2019 in Leiden. Also Vice-Dean prof. Li Wenpei and Lecturer…

In the controlled, censored, and taboo-ridden media landscape of communist China, one would not expect seeing a television show featuring real people having actual conflicts. Yet reality programmes about conflict mediation are mushrooming in the People’s Republic. Both the public and the authorities…

No matter how hard Chinese communists tried to control the economy, they could not stop the free market from flourishing. This was the message given by historian Frank Dikötter on 7 February during a lecture on the Cultural Revolution. He will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate on 8 February.

In early January, Joanne van der Leun (Dean of the Leiden Law School), Ton Liefaard (Program Director of the Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights, LL.M), and Anette van Sandwijk (Head Bureau International Education) visited China.

The world’s attention will shift to China as the Communist Party is set to hold its five-yearly congress beginning on 16 October. We talk to Senior University Lecturer Florian Schneider about how its leader Xi Jinping is expected to cement his place as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Ze…

Honduras recently severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan after 82 years. In doing so, the country is following the trend of other Central American countries that have turned their backs on the Asian island in recent years. Why are these countries making this choice now and what does it mean for Taiwan's…

Work placement as a professional development programme for vocational teachers has been widely implemented. This dissertation provides insight into vocational teachers’ learning process in this programme within Chinese vocational education.

Global versus local, democracy versus dictatorship, tradition versus modernisation: such contrasts make it difficult for anthropologists. They look in detail at what really happens and can therefore add some nuance to blueprints and debates, is what Frank Pieke, Professor in Modern China Studies, will…

In this blog post Saskia Postema and Jan Melissen claim that Chinese UN celebrities’ activism under Xi Jinping has become aligned with the Chinese leadership’s ambitions.

On 20 May 2021, LeidenAsiaCentre and The Hague Journal of Diplomacy held a seminar on "The Recalibration of China's Diplomacy".

China is actively attempting to silence critical voices about the country, including in the Netherlands. This is the main conclusion of a report on Chinese interference and intimidation within the Dutch media landscape. The media are often not well prepared for this.

China is conducting joint military exercises this week with Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. In doing so, it is seeking to strengthen military ties with the ASEAN Member States amidst growing US presence in the region.

Linde Desmaele explores how the United States is recalibrating its stance on European unity amid growing strategic competition with China.

In Nature researchers at Leiden University and Utrecht University show how 47 teeth from Southern China indicate that anatomically modern humans where present at least 80,000 years ago in the region. This is 40,000 years earlier than in Europe.

A new study reveals how ancient Chinese farmers managed soil fertility and water resources over thousands of years. By analyzing carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in millet crops, the research provides long-term isotopic evidence of farmland management practices in the Guanzhong Basin—the political…

Professor of Modern China Florian Schneider researches what people do with technology and what technology does with people. Social media, for example. And then mainly in China.

Psychologists of Leiden University and Peking University will collaborate to investigate the deficiencies in emotion recognition in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The new collaboration fits very well in the policy of Leiden University in which intensified collaboration with China has…

Sacrificing yourself for the greater good: in China, martyrdom and hero worship have been strongly encouraged by the Communist Party for the past decade or so. University lecturer Vincent Chang tells us more about this far-reaching development.

“The more you regulate the banking sector, the bigger shadow banking will get.”

Dr. Jingshu Zhu, a former PhD student at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, and Ms. Qiaozi Guanglin, alumna from Leiden Law School’s LL.M. in Public International Law have both received the second prize of Wells- HeinOnline-Frontiers of Law in China Paper Competition.

Professor emeritus Leonard Blussé of the Leiden University Institute for History has won the ‘Special Book Award of China’. The Chinese government awards this prize to translators, writers and editors who have contributed to making China better known among non-Chinese.

In her dissertation, Xiao Ma takes education as a lens to reveal the dynamic relations of three groups of South Koreans – parents, students, and educational agencies – to nation-states of both the origin and arrival. Her study shows the temporality and ambivalence of population movements between two…

This year professor emeritus Old Chinese Literature Wilt Idema receives the Special Book Award of China. The Chinese government awards this prize to translators, writers and editors with great services to China.

On 21 October 2021, Shiming Yang joined the liveable planet lunch meeting. She talked about China’s international commitment and domestic climate policies. She examined a small yet important sector –the cooling sector. As Global Warming continues, the demand for cooling systems increases, but the main…

On Tuesday 14 January 2025 Milan Ismangil successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The Hague Program for Cyber Norms, a research program at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, published its second policy brief, in which Dennis Broeders, Liisi Adamson and Rogier Creemers explore aspects of the relationship between China and Russia in cyberspace.

From 25 to 31 October, Professor Simone van der Hof was on a working visit to China with a delegation from Leiden Law School, including our dean Professor Joanne van der Leun.

The LeidenAsiaCentre will open its doors on Wednesday 27 January. This is the place for applied knowledge on Asia in the Netherlands.

Twelve Chinese PhD candidates in the Netherlands who are funded by the China Scholarship Council met with Leiden staff on 26 April 2012 to exchange experiences. Ten days earlier Leiden had welcomed a delegation from Peking University.

North Korean detention camps are no different from Nazi prison camps. But as long as the country remains economically isolated, international criticism will be ineffective, writes North Korea expert Remco Breuker in the opinion section of Dutch newspaper NRC on 21 February. Breuker advocates using the…

The aim of this research is to gain insight into the approaches of learning to teach. Teacher learning processes, feedback in novice-expert interaction and the impact of the interaction are explored.

On 10 April 2017, the Global Trade and Customs Journal published Richard Jaing’s article entitled 'Should the WTO Allow China to Impose Export Duties Designed to Combat Climate Change?

The annual Amnesty International Masterclass on China took place recently in Leiden. The masterclass, which looked at China’s impact on human rights, was given online to students of Law and Chinese.

On 15 April 2017, the Journal of WTO and China published Richard Jiang's article entitled 'Can Public International Law Play a Role in China - Raw Materials II?'

Leiden University will not extend the present partnership agreement with the Institute, which comes to an end on 31 August 2019.

Two of eLaw’s Advanced Masters students, Dimitra Laskari and Vasilis Xynoglas, presented their research on the Metaverse and Personal Digital Twins at the Neurocognition and the Reproduction of Space conference in Shanghai, China. The students presented on the rules for the Metaverse under the GDPR…

On Tuesday 3 December 2024 Shuang Liu successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.