Chinese experts and scholars attend the fourth forum of Anthropology and Country and Region Studies, which is being held at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) on November 16 and 17, 2024. Photo: Du Qiongfang/GT

Chinese experts and scholars from across the country gathered in Shanghai on Saturday to discuss and share their opinions and latest researches on anthropology and country and region studies, contributing their efforts and wisdom to the establishment of China’s own knowledge system in this respect to satisfy the needs of China’s increasing involvement in international affairs and global cooperation. 

Nearly 80 experts and scholars from 41 universities attended the fourth forum of Anthropology and Country and Region Studies, themed China’s subjectivity and multiple universalisms in local knowledge exploration and practice in country and region studies this year, which is being held at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) from Saturday to Sunday. 

Engaged in in-depth discussions, the experts hope to consolidate the academic and practical foundation for jointly building a community of shared future for mankind, and promote the building of China’s own specific knowledge system of country and region studies. 

Li Yansong, president of SISU, addressed the forum saying that country and region studies have become a standard practice for major powers and serve as a strategic execution of comprehensive knowledge exploration about the external world, providing essential knowledge support for realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and building a community with a shared future for mankind. As China continues to step onto the global stage, with increasingly frequent and deepened diplomatic interactions, the demand for knowledge about the world has not only become broader but also more detailed and deepened.

Liu Qi, a research fellow with Shanghai Academy of Global Governance and Area Studies under SISU, shared in a keynote speech her views from the perspective of research methodology on the roles of anthropology and country and region studies that play in developing the knowledge system needed to advance a new international order.

Liu said rather than following the West, China should take on a leadership role in the process of critically reflecting on this knowledge system and become a knowledge leader among developing countries via country and region studies. 

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Global South and the Chinese enterprises are exploring the international market and are all about the visions of a new world order which needs the support from the new knowledge system that China has now started to establish, Liu told the Global Times on Saturday, noting that the combination of anthropology and country and region studies is the subjects behind the new knowledge system that is urgently needed to be established. 

Since 2021, three forums on anthropology and country and region studies have been held to promote the integration, mutual support and joint development of these fields in terms of theories, methodologies, areas of study, and research topics. The fourth forum is jointly hosted by Shanghai Academy of Global Governance and Area Studies under SISU, the College of International Development and Global Agriculture of China Agricultural University, the School of International Studies of Communication University of China, and the Institute of African Studies of Zhejiang Normal University.