Zouping Revisited: Change and Continuity in a Chinese County

The Oksenberg Lecture, held annually, honors the legacy of Professor Michel Oksenberg (1938–2001). A senior fellow at Shorenstein APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Professor Oksenberg served as a key member of the National Security Council when the United States normalized relations with China, and consistently urged that the United States engage with Asia in a more considered manner. In tribute, the Oksenberg Lecture recognizes distinguished individuals who have helped to advance understanding between the United States and the nations of the Asia-Pacific.

This year, the Oksenberg Conference will be organized around the publication of Zouping Revisited: Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County that has just been published by Stanford University Press. The rural Chinese county of Zouping was a place and topic very dear to Professor Michel Oksenberg’s heart. In 1984, Professor Oksenberg achieved a milestone--obtaining official access for foreign scholars to do research in a rural site in China—the first after Opening and Reform.  Since its opening, eighty-seven U.S. academics have conducted fieldwork in Zouping, generating waves of serious scholarship, resulting in numerous books and articles.  This new volume includes the extensive research notes of Michel Oksenberg, which he sadly was unable to use before he passed away. These notes were used to complete this volume, supplemented with new research by a number of Oksenberg’s own students and his “academic grandchildren.”  It provides a big and clear window onto the surprising changes that have taken place in China over the last two decades of reform.

The conference will convene a panel of China specialists with deep personal and scholarly connections to Zouping who will provide insights into the unfolding history of doing research and fieldwork in China. The panel will also assess through this rural Shandong county the breathtaking as well as surprising changes China has experienced from the 1980s until the present.