Chinese Global Orders

Conference on Chinese Global Orders
I just attended a fascinating conference at the British Academy, a collaboration between the academy and an academic group called Chinese Global Orders, dedicated to exploring China’s burgeoning influence on global stage. Today, China is widely recognized as a global norm-maker—a phenomenon both unprecedented and, curiously, undertheorized when juxtaposed against the long-standing paradigms of Euro-American dominance.
Spanning two days, the conference featured seven panel discussions, delving into a broad array of topics: from the Global China Initiative to foreign policy and the art of curating “global China.”
Our session, titled China in Britain: National/Personal Chaos, brought together Xiaolu Guo, the prolific and talented writer, and Enver Thoti, a Uyghur surgeon whose haunting testimony included harvesting organs from prisoners. Compared to the weighty academic presentations, our panel might have seemed lighter—though “light” feels like a misnomer. Thoti’s account was both extraordinary and profoundly unsettling. Xiaolu spoke eloquently about her forthcoming novel, a reimagining of Moby-Dick, while I shared my own journey as a writer navigating a time of global uncertainty and Xi Jinping’s Tell China’s Story Well campaign. It seemed to resonate with the audience—or so I hope. I did make people laugh.
The conference was a delight, not only for its intellectual depth but also for the opportunity to meet an array of remarkable individuals, each immersed in varied pursuits.