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…

Rogier Creemers, assistent professor in Modern Chinese Studies, wrote an article about China's social credit system in the Schweizer Monat. In the article he argues that it is not the most dangerous among China's technology projects.

In recent years, online platforms have been utilized more and more to spread Chinese nationalist discourse. In an interview posted on The Diplomat, director of the Leiden Asia Centre Florian Schneider gives his thoughts on how the digital environment has changed the way Chinese activists work.

Chinese State-backed entities have taken tiny stakes in parts of two Alibaba subsidiaries that oversee a video platform and web browser. Professor Rogier Creemers argues on CNBC this move is part of a larger plan for tech regulation.

University lecturer Casper Wits wrote an opinion piece on the ongoing diplomatic tensions between the European Union and China for POLITICO. In this article, he argues that 'rather than shrinking from the fight, the EU must develop a China policy that prioritizes progressive values and human rights.…

Haar hele leven wilde de geadopteerde Cindy Huijgen terug naar haar geboorteland China. Inmiddels is de alumnus Chinastudies en Journalistiek en Nieuwe Media er correspondent.

What are the benefits for us of collaboration with Chinese partners? What sparks off Leiden researchers' interest in collaborating with colleagues in China? Leiden University shows in three short films what joint projects are like.

Europe must be prepared to stand up for its values in its relationship with China, argues University Lecturer Casper Wits in an article in Politico.

Fifteen hundred years ago, the north-west of what we now call China was a jumble of peoples. How did those Indians, Khotanese and Tocharians influence each other and each other's languages? Associate professor Michaël Peyrot has been awarded an ERC grant of almost two million euros to unravel this 'web…

Chen Wang has recently finished her doctoral research and will be defending her dissertation on May 13th. For her PhD she researched the lead in artefacts from ancient China, using isotope analysis to match them to their origins. She applied analytical methods to new contexts and used the data from…

This year, the Netherlands and China reflect on fifty years of diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level. How has the relationship between the countries developed over the past half century? An interview with university lecturer Vincent Chang.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

After an extremely painful conclusion, the Western allies have left Afghanistan and the Taliban have regained supremacy. How will Afghanistan move forward, and what does the departure mean for global relations? Rob de Wijk, emeritus Professor of International Relations and Security, analyses the failure…

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…

Dr Maikel Kuijpers, a staff member at the Faculty of Archaeology and a guest researcher at the Centre for Environmental Sciences (CML), is participating in an exploratory interdisciplinary study on the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Made possible by a Seed Fund of the Leiden University Global…

Bachelor, Master

Arnold Tukker and Mingming Hu (CML) will look for urban resilience solutions in the Dutch-Chinese ReSURE2 project that received 1.1M euro.

Assistant professor Rogier Creemers discusses in Times Higher Education how China’s universities and companies collaborate to advance AI.

The number of books by U.S. authors released in China has drastically decreased in recent years. Assistant professor Svetlana Kharchenkova wrote an article about this for the Diplomat.

In an article for East Asia Forum, University Lecturer Vincent Chang sheds light on China’s ambition to globalise its pantheon of national heroes.

Connecting generations, reducing loneliness and slowing mental decline: these are goals of the Oud Geleerd Jong Gedaan foundation’s lectures, which are given by students. What is it like to be a student giving these lectures? And what do the seniors think of them?

Associate Professor Salvador Santino Regilme comments on Trump’s visit to Beijing on Al Jazeera.

During the corona pandemic, the Chinese government's digital communication with its citizens changed. Hard propaganda was increasingly replaced by ‘soft news’. PhD candidate Dechun Zhang mapped the developments in digital society.