This paper draws upon Henri Lefebvre and Fredric Jameson to trace the shifting coordinates of social and spatial experience through novels set in Karachi (Pakistan). I bring Lefebvre's understanding of the “concrete abstraction” of space under capitalism together with Jameson's insights on the content and form of narratives to develop an understanding of “space” as constitutive to literary fiction.

Decolonisation as a moment, process, and movement is polyvalent. This talk explores decolonisation through its many prisms while focusing on the statelessness of the Rohingya people of present-day Myanmar through their role within irregular armies of the British military in World War II. The territorial metamorphosis of borderlands to bordered lands in Arakan mediated by the spectacular violence of global war made the Arakanese Muslims, or Rohingyas, as they are known today, foreigners in their own lands.

The rising digital surveillance system in China attracts attentions from the world. In this talk, based on the detailed information of newly utilized government procurement contracts, Professor Pinghan Liang will introduce some ongoing quantitative works about the features, the motivations and social impact of China's public surveillance system. The talk will attempt to answer the following questions: Why did local governments procure surveillance cameras? Which government departments are the main buyers?

Digitisation is transforming the organisation and global geography of industries, with the emergence of global modular ecosystems. This talk focuses on the smartphone industry over the past two decades and explains how new forms of organisation in the global economy complicate the process of decoupling. Although Chinese firms have carved out a dominant role in this industry, it is difficult for any country to become completely independent of the global system. From a policy perspective, interdependence through massive modularity makes decoupling both attractive and at the same time risky.

In this presentation Dr Chabrowski will address three main themes developed in his recent book, Ruling the Stage: Social and Cultural History of Opera in Sichuan from the Qing to the People’s Republic of China (Brill, 2022). Firstly, he will discuss the changing social role of opera in Sichuan across the last two centuries, underlining its role in the (broadly conceived) social welfare of the rural and urban communities. Secondly, Dr Chabrowski will focus on the fundamental role of opera in transmitting 'traditional' culture into the modernizing urban environment of the early 20th century.

How is China acquiring global influence? In this talk, Richard Carney will show how autocracies with heavy control over the corporate sector and clientelist systems are most attracted to Chinese infrastructure spending and then in turn import more technology from China and become enmeshed in China’s own technical standards regime. Carney will explore how the spread of infrastructure, technology and political influence are interconnected and all contribute to China’s growing influence on the global stage.

Despite extensive media coverage of the technological capabilities of China's surveillance state, we know relatively little about its organization and operational tactics. By combing through official documents, this talk presents a picture of China's surveillance state that sharply contrasts its portrayal in the media. The most important factor that makes China's surveillance state so fearsome is not its technological capabilities, but the Communist Party's unrivalled organizational capacity.

This talk will examine the historical evolution of Japanese perspectives on the US‒Japan security alliance’s and the Japan Self-defense Forces’ (SDF) potential roles in the event of a 'Taiwan contingency'.