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.

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…

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.’

The Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) is devoted to the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present time in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.

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…

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.

LIAS aims to advance the globally conscious vision of area studies, both within and outside the academic community. Focusing on Asia and the Middle East, the institute is a meeting place of multiple fields of inquiry, theories and methods, historical periods, and areas.

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…

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.

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.

Contrary to what one might expect, societal actors influence China’s foreign policy. PhD candidate Sabine Mokry investigated how Chinese academics and think tanks impact the authoritarian leadership’s views on what constitutes the country’s national interest in the international arena. On 14 November…

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.

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…

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.

This doctoral project, entitled Sinophone as Method: Reimaging Chinese Cinema in the Global Era, aims to explore the intricacies of knowledges and practices with regard to notions of China, Chinese, and Chineseness.

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…

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 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.

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 18 May 2022 Lan-Yi Yang successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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.

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

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…

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.

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.

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.

By choosing Leiden University, you’ll be choosing to broaden your personal and academic horizons. You’ll be in excellent company too, because you’ll be part of an inspiring community of students, lecturers and professors from all over the world. Founded in 1575, ours is the oldest university in the…

Leiden University seeks to bring knowledge, academic top talents, and resources from Leiden and China together in mutually beneficial joint research projects that are content-driven, based on existing excellent research.