Wednesday, August 24, 2016

2016 MAIS Thesis Defense Topics

At the end of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center’s academic year, MAIS students defended their theses to their chosen thesis adviser, as well as other HNC faculty members. While at the HNC, MAIS students declare a concentration area from among the five different areas of study offered: Chinese Studies; International Politics; International Economics; International and Comparative Law; and Energy, Resources and Environment. At the end of their two years of study, international MAIS students are required to write and orally defend a thesis in Chinese which relates to their chosen concentration area, while Chinese MAIS students complete their thesis in English. To help prepare for the thesis writing process, international MAIS students choose a thesis adviser from among the Chinese faculty members. In addition, MAIS students participate in thesis prep courses to learn about different research techniques, and to discover how their thesis topic might relate to a wider range of Sino-global relations.

Below are some examples of different thesis topics, which cover a diverse selection of research areas, presented by MAIS '16 students:
  • US-China Trade Disputes in the WTO
  • Development of American Football in China
  • Sub-Sexualities in Rural China
  • Chinese Attitudes on the Modern Medicine Approach of “Whole Person Care”
  • Factor Decomposition of China’s Wine Import Growth
  • Analysis of the PostSunflower Movement Social Thought
  • Political Hurdles to Photovoltaic Electricity  Generation in China



To learn more about the HNC MAIS thesis, check out this post to hear from MAIS alumni about the challenges and successes they encountered throughout the process.  

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

The HNC Dragon Boat Team


Congratulations to the HNC Dragon Boat team for their third place finish in the Nanjing city competition this past June! Our student blogger, Andrew, looks back and shares his experience as a member of the team.

HNC students participated in this year’s Dragon Boat Race in Nanjing. My team members and I have been training for almost two months getting ready for the competition. Every week we worked out in group plyometrics workouts and weight lifting workouts, and practiced on Mo Chou Lake with our coach.


Finally on June 9 we competed against over 20 other teams from Nanjing and… we came in THIRD!


Outside of those that were rowing in the competition, this event really included so much of the HNC. Some students formed their own cheerleading squad and danced in a competition before the actual dragon boat race. Students and professors came out for the race and cheered us on all day with lots of new HNC paraphernalia, including HNC flags.


Many of the people from Nanjing who came out to watch the dragon boat race were quite surprised at our success and were really excited to talk with us. A local news station interviewed us and some of our responses even made it into a Nanjing newspaper.


The day of the race, everyone got to the lake bright and early around 7:15 am. Despite some setbacks (especially one where one team decided to ram our boat and cut us off mid race) all of our hard work paid off and after four races, we were ecstatic to find that we had made it to the finals. We raced in a final marathon style race, which was 1000m and a final normal race, which was 300m.

In the final 300m race we raced three other teams and came in third. It was so much fun for everyone and I know, especially for all those who rowed, it is an experience we will never forget.

In addition to dragon boat, the HNC also had its end-of-semester barbeque. It was a great way to begin winding down at the end of the semester with good barbecue, games, and live band performances from the HNC’s band (the Chuar-zards).


Written by Andrew Retallick

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

HNC 30th Anniversary Forum on Sino-Global Relations

An academic forum on Sino-Global Relations was held at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center June 18, bringing together experts from both academia and the private sector to discuss core issues at the intellectual heart of the HNC. The Forum was attended by an overflow crowd of alumni, students, and other guests taking part in the HNC’s 30th anniversary celebrations in Nanjing.

Professor Shi Bin, Academic Dean and former student of the HNC, opened the forum and introduced Nanjing University Vice-Chancellor Zhu Qingbao and Johns Hopkins University SAIS Dean Vali Nasr. They set the stage with remarks on the HNC’s role within the two universities that created the HNC and have nurtured its development.

Johns Hopkins SAIS Dean Vali Nasr gives introductory remarks
The first panel, on China, the U.S., and the World, provided both professional and personal views on how the U.S.-China relationship has been transformed and, in turn, impacted the world in the past three decades. Panel moderator David M. Lampton, SAIS Professor and China Studies Director, talked about relative changes in the positions of China and the US in terms of their global capacity and their share of world GDP, and how this impacts the current world order.  Amy Celico, a SAIS and HNC graduate who leads the Albright Stonebridge Group’s China and East Asia practice, focused on economic and commercial relations. She drew on her rich professional experience in government and the private sector to outline commercial challenges the two countries face today, as well as those they have met and overcome in the past. Professor Zhu Feng, who directs Nanjing University’s Institute of International Studies and the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea added his insights on political challenges in the relationship, both those of immediate concern and historical importance.

The second panel examined issues of Energy and the Environment, with particular attention to how the U.S. and China approach the problem of finding and developing renewable energy resources. The panel was moderator by Peking University Professor Huang Haifeng, an HNC graduate who is now assistant Dean for International Relations at Peking University’s HSBC Business School.  He was joined by two distinguished energy industry experts—Mr. Zhu Gongshan, founder and chairman of Golden Concord Holdings, and Mr. Peter Li, General Manager of GE Renewable Energy Greater China.  They highlighted both the importance and the tremendous ongoing potential for collaboration between the United States and China in resolving important energy and environmental issues.

Panelists focus on Energy and Environment issues

The combination of industry and academic expertise on both panels led to broad-ranging presentations and a lively discussion between the panelists and the audience. Running through the presentations was the theme of the important role the U.S. and China play in shaping the current global order, and the need for the two sides to achieve understanding, if not always goal alignment, in solving many pressing international issues. As Amy Celico noted, HNC graduates of the past 30 years are now making important contributions to this process across a variety of sectors and issues in both countries and around the world.