China in Transition is a compulsory course at Yenching Academy. It focuses on development and changes in contemporary China, while remaining grounded in the distinct historical context in the country. Within concentrations of economy, politics & law, society & culture, and environment, the interdisciplinary course explores the topics of modernity, sustainability, and humanity in the process of China’s modernization against the backdrop of globalization.
The group of 15 mentors selected to lead groups of Yenching Scholars are from Peking University and Cornell University.
The 2026 China in Transition Yenching Scholars Forum kicked off on June 13. Xu Xin, Fan Shiming, Guo Li, Zhang Jian, Zhang Shiqiu, Xu Jianhua, Wu Jing, Wu Lijuan, and Fan Xinguang from our mentor team first held a teaching seminar at Jingyuan Courtyard 3 on how to apply an interdisciplinary approach effectively to explore the topics of modernity, sustainability, and humanity in China in Transition. Interdisciplinarity is both the defining challenge and the core value of the course. The teachers also exchanged views on the students’ spring-semester research and field studies, and listened to teaching assistants’ feedback on the course. Through the annual teaching seminar, our mentors have consolidated consensus on the course and worked in concert to improve the course design and teaching approach.
The second part of the forum is comprised of research presentations from students. For this academic year’s CIT course, scholars from the 2025 Cohort were divided into 32 research groups and made field trips in 17 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Henan, Gansu, Xizang, Xinjiang, Shanghai, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi. Mentors and students had in-depth discussions through interdisciplinary presentations within four parallel sessions.
Session 1
Session 1 revolved around technology and industrial transformation. The participating scholars employed triangulation, combining qualitative interviews and quantitative data, to explore challenges and opportunities in transformation across diverse areas, including AI in education, workforce restructuring, new energy competition, green data centers, national parks, and ecological restoration. Zhou Yi, Associate Professor at PKU Guanghua School of Management, and Pan Yuhang, Assistant Professor at PKU Institute for Global Health and Development, served as the presentation reviewers for this session.
Session 2
Session 2 focused on identity and cultural practice. Through field interviews and textual analysis, the scholars captured social tensions and emerging subcultures in contemporary China, as exemplified in rural migrants in Yunnan, the development of Xiong’an New Area, intergenerational marriage mismatch, the DINK phenomenon, the microdrama industry, the appearance of hutongs on screen, subcultures in Sichuan, and public slogans and cultural governance in Xizang.
Session 3
Session 3 examined the topics of state governance and ideology. The research projects encompassed a wide array of issues, from gendered space, fandom and identity expression, urban village in transition, guiding principles in border areas, red tourism, state narrative embedded in community heating, and people-centered local governance, rolling out a panorama of the interplay between institutional efforts and kaleidoscopic social life.
Session 4
Session 4 concentrated on cultural practice, media, and rule of law. The scholars delineated the development trajectory of cultural innovation and law-based governance, through examining diverse topics from hip-hop community, marriage markets and matchmaking in tier 1 cities, new media and city image, gender perception in rattan craft, online and offline performance of Hui culture, hard-soft law interactions in Chinese AI policy, international arbitration and rule of law development, and tourism-policy synergy in Xinjiang under the opening-up policy.
Closing Ceremony
In the afternoon, the closing ceremony was held and the Best Poster Awards and the Distinguished Research Awards were presented to the winning groups. Best Poster Awards were selected by a collective vote of the teachers, TAs, and students attending the sessions. The top-voted research groups received awards.
Best Poster Awards
Distinguished Research Awards
The Distinguished Research Awards were selected by the mentors based on a set of criteria, including professionalism, originality, logical clarity, and cutting-edge relevance. The assessment criteria addressed multiple aspects, including the depth and breadth of the research, professionalism and appropriateness of the methodology, and the clarity, fluency, and engagement of the oral presentation.
The research group of Marva Jiaqi Shi (USA), Xing Chaoran (China), and Yang Xinrui (China) received the Distinguished Research Award. Within two months, the three made site visits to marriage markets in parks in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, and interviewed marriage market stakeholders, including anxious parents, young onlookers, professional matchmakers, and “tagged” singles. Based upon their primary data collected through ethnographic fieldwork in the three tier 1 cities, these three Yenching Scholars explored the intergenerational bargaining, class anxiety, and calculus of metropolitan intimacy in matchmaking market and presented a tableau of tier 1 marriage markets in contemporary China. The research group offered a substantive analysis of marriage and family in contemporary China, grounded in a substantial body of interviews and informed by a keen sociological sensibility. The group was also a recipient of the Best Poster Award.
Yang Xinrui (member of the top group for the Distinguished Research Award): We employed multiple methods, such as semi-structured interviews and OCR language analysis, to dissect the primary data we collected. And in this way, we gained a comprehensive understanding of our research subjects.
What’s more, our mentor’s guidance was important. Prof. Wu Jing helped us clarify the research direction and core topics. With her instructions, we were able to delineate the logic and narrative thread. The project was a success, thanks to Prof. Wu’s instruction and our three-person teamwork.
The second prize of the Distinguished Research Award went to the group of Charis Yang (Australia), Ritik Chamola (India), and Aurelia Dochnal (Poland), whose research focused on the mechanism of hip-hop communities in contemporary China. Three research groups tied for the third place. Marcelin Bresson (The Netherlands), Roariker Swenson (USA), Haruki Shimonagane (Japan), and Andrea Tosoni (Italy) examined the ecological outcomes of the Green Great Wall. Marija Panova (North Macedonia), Ashley Leung (USA), Leah Field (USA), Iris Qi Hamilton (USA), and Jamie Reintjes (USA) delved into fandom culture both online and offline to see how fandom culture among contemporary Chinese youth shape their identity formation and gender expression; their group also received the Best Poster Award. Rory D’Angelo (UK), Leo Barry (Australia), Michael Kosei Delphia (USA), Olivia Marinaccio (USA), and Blake Kravitz (USA) scrutinized the local practice of people-centered governance in Rongjiang county, Guizhou province; their group also received the Best Poster Award.
All the mentors and scholars expressed their gratitude toward the team of teaching assistants; without the support from TAs, the research projects and forum would not have been such a success. A mentor representative presented certificates to TAs in recognition of their contributions to the course.
Xu Xin (Program Manager for the Levinson Program in China and Asia-Pacific Studies at Cornell University & Course Coordinator for China in Transition at Yenching Academy): China in Transition is designed to be a compulsory introductory course to explore modernity, sustainability, and humanity of contemporary China. This interdisciplinary course offers a macroscopic perspective to understand contemporary China based upon its distinctive historical trajectory. Members of our teaching team brainstorm and discuss in-depth together. The course incorporates intellectual traditions and latest advances across academic fields, offering a sound, comprehensive framework for exploring major real-world and theoretical topics in China’s modernization process. It is aimed to equip our scholars with hands-on analytical tools. The course adopts an inquiry-based, dialectic approach, integrating lectures, discussions, supervised research, and fieldwork. It places equal emphasis on student agency and the reciprocal learning between teachers and students.
Over 60 years ago, the renowned sinologist Mary C. Wright offered a penetrating insight in “Modern China in Transition, 1900‒1950”:
Contemporary China can only be understood in relation to its recent past. During the half century before 1950, Chinese history was marked both by the vigorous persistence of tradition and by the emergence of powerful revolutionary drives. With the final collapse of the imperial system, China sought meaningful values and effective institutions which could realistically link past, present, and future.
This incisive analysis remains relevant as we examine developments in contemporary China and analyze China’s modernization process.
