IU introduces research center to study China

As Mattel toys make the news and China’s economy grows at a rapid pace, IU introduced this year the Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business.\nThe center, established in February, aims to bring 12 faculty experts together from the fields of economics, politics and business who will work toward understanding China’s complicated economic situation.\nScott Kennedy, the center’s director and an associate professor in East Asian languages and cultures and political science, considers this interdisciplinary approach an important advantage.\n“This is a pretty unique center,” Kennedy said. “It brings together the study of issues, which, often times, are studied separately. Business faculty typically focus on the economics and narrow business components of problems. People who study Chinese politics tend to not be good at economics. ... It just seems, from a real world perspective these are issues that ought to be studied in one place.”\nThe center gives faculty members the support they need to do their individual research, and it brings them together so they can benefit from each other, Kennedy said. It also hosts visiting scholars, postdoctorate fellows and researchers from China, which add another element to the center’s studies. \nThe center is currently hosting postdoctoral fellow Junmin Wang from New York University and Deng Guosheng, a leading researcher on non-governmental organizations from Tsinghua University in Beijing. \nWang is researching China’s political involvement in business and the Chinese tobacco industry. \nShe said visiting scholars bring fresh ideas to the center. \n“We are able to bring minds from different backgrounds, cultures and sociology, and work together to create this intellectual alignment,” she said. “I believe it is a great opportunity.”\nSince the center opened eight months ago, its faculty have published articles in national academic journals like the American Journal of Sociology. Kennedy spoke before a congressional committee, and earlier this month, the center organized presentations by Robert Kapp, the former president of the US-China Business Council. \nKennedy said the center hopes to continue its momentum in the future. \n“It would be really good to obtain research funds that would be able to permanently provide resources to IU students,” Kennedy said. “We want to both do research and share the fruits of our research, and then also sort of energize people to be interested in the topic.”