Studying Global China Workshop 2026

Studying 'Global China' presents unique challenges. For researchers trained in Sinology, engaging with China's global entanglements requires new methodological approaches. For those from social science backgrounds, language barriers and limited historical or cultural knowledge can complicate research on China's global influence. The "Studying Global China" workshop offers a platform to explore these challenges, reflect on research approaches, and exchange fieldwork experiences. Connect with fellow scholars over coffee and snacks, listen to inspiring lectures on current issues, and learn with and from each other: Who is working on what? What are your fieldwork experiences? Join us for two days of debate and networking at Humboldt University Berlin!

This year's workshop features Ching Kwan Lee as keynote speaker. Professor Lee teaches Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and is widely known for her book The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor and Foreign Investment in Africa (2017). She currently edits the Cambridge Elements in Global China series and co-convenes the Global Hong Kong Studies @UC initiative.

In addition, on Monday, February 16th, there will be lectures by Claus Soong (MERICS), Daniel Sprick (Universität Köln) and John Njenga Karugia (Humboldt University Berlin). On February 17th, based on participants' interests, there will be space for informal sessions on specific topics as well as a feedback session with C. K. Lee.

Participation is open to PhD students, postdocs, and other interested Berlin-based scholars. M.A./M.Sc. students may also join, depending on available capacity. Registration is possible until February 8th, 2026.

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Would you like to receive feedback on your research project in a small group setting with C. K. Lee?

We invite PhD students to submit a one-page summary of their research project (350–500 words). Your submission should outline your research question, methodology, current stage of research, and the status of your data collection. The workshop is open to all PhD students, with a preference for those in the early stages of planning, about to begin fieldwork, or who have recently conducted fieldwork. Please send your one-pager via email to merle.groneweg@hu-berlin.de

Monday, February 16th, 2026

10:00-10:15am Arrival & Welcome

10:15-11:45 am
Researching Global China: A Primer
Ching Kwan Lee (UCLA)

How does one go about researching global China? This talk offers theoretical and methodological suggestions to scholars interested in documenting and analyzing China's multi-faceted global engagement. We will first discuss two broad approaches in the field of Global China Studies in which scholars either focus on (1) grand strategy, elite discourses and aggregate tendencies or (2) granular dynamics of locality specific cases. Then, we will explore how empirical research can be formulated to move beyond this bifurcation by pursue "extensions" to theory, comparison, connection and circulation.

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Ching Kwan Lee is professor in the department of Sociology at UCLA. She is a sociologist working at the intersection of global and comparative issues, including labor, political sociology, global development, decolonization, comparative ethnography, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Africa. She has published three multiple award-winning monographs on contemporary China, forming a trilogy of Chinese capitalism through the lens of labor and working class experiences. The last of those monographs, The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in Africa (Chicago 2017), follows the footsteps of Chinese state investors to Zambia and compares its relation with African state and labor to other global private investors. She is currently working on a monograph, Forever Hong Kong: A Global City’s Struggle for Decolonization (Harvard, under contract), the series editor of Cambridge Elements in Global China, and a convener of the Global Hong Kong Studies @UC initiative.

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12:00pm -1:00 pm
Drivers in China's Foreign Policy: China's global ambitions and their implication to the global order

Claus Soong (MERICS)

How should we understand China's global ambitions? What drives and shapes China's foreign policy under Xi Jinping? This talk briefly reviews Chinese worldviews, diplomatic priorities, and global initiatives under Xi Jinping to sketch an overall picture of China's grand strategy. It traces what has changed and what has remained constant, providing a foundation for evaluating what China seeks to achieve and how this may affect the global order. Engaging with debates on China's impact on the international order, the talk concludes by exploring what "global order" means beyond Western and liberal frameworks, adopting a multiplex perspective.

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Claus Soong specializes in China's global strategy with a particular focus on China's role in the Asia-Pacific and the Global South, China-US relations and Hong Kong. Prior to joining MERICS, he gained experience working with organizations such as the International Crisis Group and the Center for China and Globalization in Hong Kong and Beijing, and Greenmantle in New York.

Claus holds a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Delaware, a Master of Management Science in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University in Beijing as a Schwarzman Scholar, and Master and Bachelor of Laws degrees from National Chengchi University in Taipei.


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2:00-3:00 pm
Legal Dimensions of China-Latin America Engagement: From the BRI to a Foreign-Related Rule of Law
Daniel Sprick (University of Cologne)

At a time when the international order is being challenged by one of its former champions, China wants to be seen as a responsible superpower that adheres to the sober principles of rule-based governance. In recent years, the rhetoric surrounding China's "Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics" has been bolstered by the development of "Xi Jinping Legal Thought", which also encompasses a concept called "foreign-related rule of law (FRROL)". Under this umbrella term, China has created a domestic legal framework for its international relations and strives to increase the global discourse power of its laws, courts, and legal professionals. However, the greater international reach of China's legal system is not only intended to safeguard a rule-based order. China's FRROL is explicitly designed to advance Chinese interests and protect Chinese actors against the long-arm jurisdiction of other countries.

This talk will introduce the core principles and main mechanisms of China's domestic legal framework for promoting the FRROL agenda, demonstrating its implementation in the legal engagements of Chinese actors in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) as weöö as illustrating the complexities that must be navigated for China's FRROL to fulfill its promise of a rule-based Global China.

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Daniel Sprick is a post-doctoral researcher at the Chair of Chinese Legal Culture at the University of Cologne. He was awarded the Hanenburg-Yntema Fund Prize for a thesis on competition law and received his doctorate from the University of Cologne with a dissertation on the limits of self-defense in Chinese criminal law. His research interests include contemporary Chinese criminal law, AI regulation, and the inter- and transnational dimensions of Chinese law. He is currently PI in a research projects on Chinese Smart Courts and in a project on the application of "Socialist Core Values" in Chinese courts. His most recent publications deal with, among other things, the influence of the media on criminal proceedings in China, developments in predictive policing in China, the State Immunity Law, and the value alignment of AI in China. He has advised the European Parliament and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs on issues such as investor-state dispute settlement, China's international trade courts, and China's understanding of human rights.

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3:30-4:30 pm
New Silk Roads: Global China and Decolonial Knowledge Production
John Njenga Karugia (Humboldt University Berlin)


With a focus on old and new silk roads, we shall discuss: knowledge archives about global China; how knowledge production about global China has evolved; how coloniality framed global China and afterlives thereof; and complexities of decolonial knowledge production about global China. We shall use case studies from my research about New Silk Roads including a film excerpt from the documentary film "New Silk Roads in Global and Local Politics" that I made in 2025. The film 'New Silk Roads in Local and Global Politics' is a journey along maritime and land routes of the New Silk Roads from Xi'an to Mombasa, Duisburg to Chongqing, Gwadar to Makassar, Strait of Mallaca to Athens etc. It emerged from an attempt at understanding the impact and reception of infrastructure projects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) across Africa, Asia and Europe. The film illuminates local receptions and implications of China's global investments in transregional infrastructure projects.

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John Njenga Karugia is a scholar of Transregional Memory Studies, Indian Ocean Studies, Africa-China Relations, Asia Pacific Studies and Area Studies. His research is currently based at the Humboldt University of Berlin within the De:Link // Re:Link research consortium. He is a member of the Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform with a focus on memory politics, memory ethics and responsible cosmopolitanism. He is a Visiting Professor at Hasanuddin University in Makassar, Indonesia, with a focus on transoceanic maritime research, and teaching that focus on diverse aspects of the Afrasian Sea, otherwise referred to as; Ziwa Kuu, Bahari, Ratnakara, the Swahili Sea, Indian Ocean, Bahari Hindi. He has travelled widely for research stints in many countries. His research has been featured within various international exhibitions such as 'Indigo Waves and Other Stories: Re-navigating the Afrasian Sea and Notions of Diaspora' at Gropius Bau in 2023 and 'Gardens in Transition: Commitments, Obligations and Practices.' As a documentary film-maker, he has made two films: "Afrasian Memories in East Africa" (2018) and "New Silk Roads in Local and Global Politics" (2025). He has been a Visiting Scholar at Duke University, Shanghai Maritime University, Quaid e Azam University etc.

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February 17th

Informal sessions among PhD students as well feedback session with C. K. Lee.