Chloë Starr（司马懿）

The World Conference on Sinology 

The World Conference on Sinology, which has been meeting biannually for 18? years will convene in June this year in Shenzhen. The conference brings together scholars and students of contemporary Chinese studies and classical Chinese studies in their many forms, gathering international relations (IR) specialists alongside literature scholars, archaeologists alongside economists. Those who present at the conference are all invested in China, and most have made China studies the core of their career and life’s work. The conference includes both China studies, and Chinese studies—i.e. those who study China from a social science or external perspective and those who study Chinese philosophical and other texts in fields dominated by Chinese counterparts.

At a time when regional studies are in retreat, academics are sidelined in many countries, and we should all restrict our travel and reduce our carbon expenditure, what is the gain from such a large gathering of foreign and local China expertise?

The reality is that fostering mutual understanding has never been more important. At a time of a rapidly changing world order, when the US is retreating from its role in providing global aid and leadership in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other alliances, and China is expanding its global role, the value of face-to-face meetings and exchange cannot be underestimated. Academics have long been an important link between foreign policy advice and governments. In the age of mass media they also offer important voices in “serious” newspapers and news outlets, providing a more balanced view of China to audiences. China scholars are needed to re-direct discourse that deliberately or unwittingly misunderstands China. They can challenge international policy decisions that come from a place of insecurity and ignorance rather than from deep knowledge or connections.

We all tend to view the world from within own regime and worldview, so policy makers might focus on internal or domestic contradictions in making judgements, instead of a broader picture. We need the other to hold up a mirror so we can see the self clearly. Those who haven’t lived abroad rarely understand what they take for granted in their own country– only when the norm is questioned do we appreciate that a trait is just a local cultural habit. It’s the same in academia: different countries have different history of sinologies, and ask different questions; we need to hear and learn from academics across the globe to see how priorities might be different in Chinese studies in different parts of the world.

The theme of this year’s conference, “Understanding China: Sinologies in the Era of Artificial Intelligence” cuts across both the intellectual and the political, making it a particularly important gathering. AI affects every area of Chinese studies, from computer translation, to classical text datasets, to techno-utopia literatures, to the economics and politics of chip manufacture, through to different cultural views on the ethics of human finitude and enhancement. It entails deep questions on the future of humanity for us all—such as regarding strong or weak AI, whether consciousness is possible in a materialist universe—that are both scientific and philosophical. As the leading researcher into AI tools, China’s views and practices are critical to the rest of the world.

AI is not a neutral tool: it is trained on cultural objects like newspapers, and its language acquisition can be manipulated by selective sources. The philosophical and ethical questions new technologies are raising are particular in their programming but universal in their impact. They raise exciting new questions about the nature of the human (including enhanced humans), such as, for example, how a robot’s world of perception (through echolocation, digital footprints etc.) differ from our senses of smell and taste, and why this matters; or how our human perception of time will have to change as we grasp robot computation speeds, given that robots think (and so live) around 10,000 times faster than us. 

We all benefit from the technological advances that have made life easier or more convenient: communication across distance and language, international banking systems, or even the remote operation of our fridge. For those of us who study literature, searchable classical text databases have opened up whole new avenues of study. Yet as we are all also clear, too, fears of artificial general intelligence (AGI) are pervasive, AI regulation is in its infancy and not internationally agreed, and the trade-offs in AI are often played down as big tech companies innovate and capitalise on their innovations while governments rush to catch up. The environmental costs of data generation and storage are huge, and countries face significant loss of employment, and losses to local tax bases, as AI takes over human jobs. The crossover between AI and military use is concerning to many. Other moral dimensions that humanities scholars explore, such as mutuality and moral agency, have yet to be fully explored.

AI advances are already changing the global economic and political landscape, with China at the forefront. AI is seen as the industry most likely to upend the current global economy, meaning that political science scholars are being called on once again to interpret China and its intentions to their governments. With an unpredictable pragmatist in change of the major global economy of the United States, and political ties weakened by the recent disagreements over tariffs with many countries, communication has deteriorated. Without good multilateral communication, we are less able to discuss AI—or any of the many common challenges we face like climate change or global disease. The networks and ties that scholars form allow for better understanding and knowledge to inform countries’ positions and policies. They also allow for continued interaction and discussion outside of government channels by people who care about the shared questions, whatever their field.  

Conferences enable us to catch up, chat about esoteric topics, train younger scholars, see amazing cities like Shenzhen—but they might just also contribute to a better world.