Come hear Christopher Marquis discuss his new book Mao and Markets (Yale University Press, 2023) that charts how Mao’s ideological principles, mass campaigns, and socialist institutions have enduringly influenced Chinese entrepreneurs, listed companies and provincial and city politicians.

As China opened up its economy over the past four decades, conventional wisdom held that the country’s growing embrace of free markets would lead to a more liberal society. Instead, China’s unprecedented economic growth has positioned state capitalism as a durable foil to the orthodoxy of free markets, to the confusion of many in the West. Many have commented on China's renewed embrace of Maoist principles. What does this mean for the future of the Chinese economy and relations with the West? What are the implications of China returning to some of the ideological principles spearheaded by Mao Zedong? And how much of China’s decades of economic success can be credited to Mao and Maoism?

This panel is cohosted by the Cornell China Center, the Yale Club of Hong Kong, the Notre Dame Beijing Global Gateway, and the Yale Center Beijing.

About the Speaker

Christopher Marquis is the Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. He is the author of the award winning books Better Business: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism and Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise. Prior to joining Cambridge he worked at Cornell for over 6 years, and Harvard for over 11 years, where he developed an award-winning course on social entrepreneurship. He is the author of more than 20 peer-reviewed academic articles and more than 50 Harvard business cases on topics related to sustainable business, and has earned awards for scholarly achievement from the Academy of Management and the American Sociological Association. Marquis earned a PhD in sociology and business administration from the University of Michigan and BA in History from Notre Dame. Before his academic career, he worked for six years in the financial services industry, most recently as vice president and technology manager for a business unit of J.P. Morgan Chase.

Event Details

7:30 am - 8:30 am Eastern Standard Time (EST) / 8:30 pm - 9:30 pm China Standard Time (CST). The event language is English.

Register for the book talk. Advance registration is required before Febrary 7 at 11:00 pm EST to obtain a Zoom event link. Your registration request will be confirmed at least 24 hours ahead of the event. If you encounter problems, please email yalecenterbeijing@yale.edu.

Please enter the Zoom room 15 minutes before the event start time. When the room is full, latecomers will not be able to join the event.

Xingke tiben: A Murder Case from 1762

CCCC with Matthew Sommer (History, Stanford)

The Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium (CCCC) 古文品讀 is a reading group for scholars interested in premodern Sinographic (古文) text. The group typically meets monthly during the semester to explore a variety of classical Chinese texts and styles. Other premodern texts linked to classical Chinese in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese have been explored. Presentations include works from the earliest times to the 20th century. Workshop sessions are led by local, national, and international scholars.

All are welcome, with any level of experience with classical Chinese or Sinographic text.

Liyu Hua, Ph.D. student in Asian Studies, Cornell.

“How does Language Work?: Vasubandhu(世親)’s Discussions from the Abhidharmakośa(bhāṣya) (阿毘達磨倶舍論)”

Liyu Hua studies the history of religions in northwestern India during the Kushan period (100 CE to 300 CE).

The Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium (CCCC) 古文品讀 is a reading group for scholars interested in premodern Sinographic (古文) text. The group typically meets monthly during the semester to explore a variety of classical Chinese texts and styles. Other premodern texts linked to classical Chinese in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese have been explored. Presentations include works from the earliest times to the 20th century. Workshop sessions are led by local, national, and international scholars.

All are welcome, with any level of experience with classical Chinese or Sinographic text.

Japan is seen as an ethno-national country in which “Japanese” is synonymous with Japanese nationality, race, ethnicity, language, and customs. How solid is the boundary between the Japanese mainstream and those with immigrant backgrounds? In evaluating the Japanese native side of the international boundary, we found a great deal of variation about what criteria foreigners must meet to be considered Japanese. This evidence suggests that a significant percentage of the population is willing to welcome immigrants and their children into their society as full citizens who will also, most importantly, be considered fully Japanese.

Faculty host: Tristan Ivory (ILR, Cornell)

Michael Nylan (Jane K. Sather History Chair, University of California-Berkeley) will explore in the second of our four guest presenters:

Xunzi's (荀子) "On Rituals" (禮論)

She is a truly interdisciplinary scholar. Her single goal is to know as well as possible the extant texts and artifacts that her historical subjects knew during the early empires in China.

The Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium (CCCC) 古文品讀 is a reading group for scholars interested in premodern Sinographic (古文) text. The group typically meets monthly during the semester to explore a variety of classical Chinese texts and styles. Other premodern texts linked to classical Chinese in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese have been explored. Presentations include works from the earliest times to the 20th century. Workshop sessions are led by local, national, and international scholars.

All are welcome, with any level of experience with classical Chinese or Sinographic text.

Casey Stevens (Ph.d. student, Asian Studies, Cornell) will launch the Classical Chinese Colloquium Spring '23 with Content and Form: Dunhuang Anthologies of Tang Poetry.

The Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium (CCCC) 古文品讀 is a reading group for scholars interested in premodern Sinographic (古文) text. The group typically meets monthly during the semester to explore a variety of classical Chinese texts and styles. Other premodern texts linked to classical Chinese in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese have been explored. Presentations include works from the earliest times to the 20th century. Workshop sessions are led by local, national, and international scholars.

All are welcome, with any level of experience with classical Chinese or Sinographic text.

Michael Nylan (History, UC Berkeley) gives this year's Annual Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture on "Majority Rule and Consortial Policymaking: The Evidence from Early China."

Inspired by Hu Shih’s many contributions to the study of Chinese history — among them, his careful outline of “the logical method in ancient China” and his many writings on “freedom” — this talk intends to challenge a popular narrative equating “Asian values” or, more narrowly, “Chinese tradition,” with “one-man, top-down rule.” The talk will instead show first, that a range of theoretical writings in classical Chinese advocate consortial rule and wide consultation, for cogent reasons, and second, that not only the Han histories but also the built environment in the Western Han capital of Chang’an attest to the importance the court placed on facilitating frequent exchanges between members of the governing elites and those they governed, via well-established institutions, networks, and communication corridors. The newly excavated materials support this revisionist picture for all administrative levels during the early empires in China, suggesting that Hu Shih's optimistic vision of a brighter Chinese future was not entirely utopian. Please rsvp for the in-person event. Though we request an rsvp, no one will be turned away as long as we have capacity.

Michale Nylan bio:

Michael Nylan 戴梅可generally writes in three disciplines: the early empires in China, philosophy, and art and archaeology. Her current projects include a reconstruction of a Han-era Documents classic (submitted to press; under review); a general-interest study of the "Four Fathers of History" (Herodotus, Thucydides, Sima Qian, and Ban Gu), which is nearly done, and a study of the politics of the common good in early China tentatively entitled The Air We Breathe. Recent published books include Chang'an 26 BCE: an Augustan age in China, with substantive comparisons to Rome and the Roman empire; The Chinese Pleasure Book; and two translations, of Yang Xiong's Fayan and The Art of War.

Research Interests

Early China and its modern reception: Seven centuries of Warring States through Eastern Han (475 BC–AD 220), with an emphasis on sociopolitical context; aesthetic theories and material culture; and cosmological belief; gender history and the history of such emotions as "daring" and "salutary fear" (aka prudential caution).

New Research

My new research is on the Four Fathers of History (Herodotus, Thucydides, Sima Qian, and Ban Gu); on the distinctive sociopolitical and culture conditions for classical learning in the two Han dynasties; and on "the politics of the common good" in early China.

Two book-length translations for the University of Washington Press ("Classics of Chinese Thought") series: (1) The Documents (Shu ching), in collaboration with He Ruyue, Shaanxi Shifan daxue; and (2) Wang Ch'ung's Lun heng.

Education

PhD, Princeton University, 1976-81. East Asian Studies.

MA, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1970-73. History.

BA, University of California at Berkeley, 1968-70. History.

Additional Training:

Cambridge University (Oriental Studies) and the Institute of Archaeology (Beijing)