Jews and Judaism in Contemporary China

Pan Guang will speak on Judaism in China at Columbia University.

Pan Guang (born June 7, 1947, in Shanghai, China) is the Director of and Professor at the Shanghai Center for International Studies and Institute of European & Asian Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Director of SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) Studies Center in Shanghai, Dean of Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai (CJSS) and Vice Chairman of the Chinese Society of Middle East Studies.

Pan Guang was born in Shanghai, but raised in Hainan, a small island province in the south of the People's Republic of China. He studied at Renmin University in Beijing, and at East China Normal University in Shanghai. He holds a bachelor of political science and a master and doctorate in history. Furthermore he is a council member of the Asia Society in the USA, Senior Advisor of the China-Eurasia Forum in the USA, Advisory Board Member of the Asia Europe Journal in Singapore and Senior Advisor on Anti-terror Affairs to the Mayor of Shanghai. In 1993 he received the James Friend Annual Memorial Award for Sino-Jewish Studies, in 1996 the Special Award for Research on Canadian Jews from China, in 2004 the Saint Petersburg-300 Medal for Contribution to China-Russia Relations awarded by President Putin and in 2006 the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award. Furthermore, he was nominated by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a member of the High-Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations in 2005.