Author Archives: graniapickard

Call for Papers: The Globalisation of Christianity in China, University of Manchester 15 – 16 May 2014

Posted on by

Call for Papers: The Globalisation of Christianity in China

 An international conference organised by

Centre for Chinese Studies,

Division of Religions and Theology

To be held at the University of Manchester 15-16 May 2014

 Christianity came to China four times: with the Nestorians during the Tang dynasty (618-907), the Franciscans during the Mongol-ruled Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), the Jesuits during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and with the Protestants ever since the Opium War (1839-42) and during the Republican Era (1911-1949).  But four times it seems they disappeared as these dynasties and the Republican regime vanished from the map of China.  The study of Christianity in China has flourished in recent year (Richard Madson, Lian Xi, Ryan Dunch, Alvyn Austin, Daniel Bays, to name a few).  But the re-emergence and popularity of Christianity in the post-Mao era has raised new questions about the ways in which historians have studied the history of these missions/missionaries.  The churches, converts and practices they left behind have resurfaced in the post-Mao era.  These missions have not failed as generations of historians have argued. The post-Mao era has provided us with hindsight unavailable to us before. How does this help us to re-examine the history of Christianity in China? The landscape of Christianity in post-Mao China is diverse; it differs enormously not just in terms of denomination and brand but also in terms of practice as some congregate in underground churches, some in old churches built by missionaries and others in new facilities provided by the government.  How significant were the foundations laid in the two millennia before?  Many Chinese people, both the elite and the ordinary, have embraced or become interested in Christianity.  What could this mean for China in the decades to come?  We welcome historians/scholars of Christianity and China to join us in a debate that addresses the following questions/issues:

  1. Is there a pattern in the introduction and indigenisation of Christianity in China in the past one thousand four hundred years
  2. Who are the old and new Christians that have emerged and what can they tell us about history, Mao and post-Mao China?
  3. Is the post-Mao emergence of Christianity true indigenisation because it is not missionary-imposed, but home grown and self-driven?
  4. What is the significance of the transition from “Christianity in China” to “Chinese Christianity”?

Inquiries and abstracts of no more than 200 words, plus 5 lines of biographical information, should be sent to Rebecca Frost at rebecca.frost@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk before 5 January 2014. Those accepted to present at the conference will be notified by 31 January 2014.  Accommodation and food will be provided during the conference but paper presenters should look for their own funding for travel.

Citizen Media in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, China and East Asia, and the Arab World: An interdisciplinary doctoral/postdoctoral training workshop

Posted on by

 Citizen Media in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, 

China and East Asia, and the Arab World
An interdisciplinary doctoral/postdoctoral training workshop

27-28 January 2014, The University of Manchester

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: 22 November 2013 

Call for Contributions from Doctoral Students and Early Career Researchers

The term ‘citizen media’, or ‘participatory media’, covers a wide range of activities undertaken by ordinary, non-professional citizens who lay a claim to an area of public life and politics and seek to transform it in some way. From videos circulated on Youtube to graffiti, street performance and other forms of street art, and from community radio to blogging, crowd sourcing, tweeting, flashmob protest and hacktivism, new forms of civic engagement continue to develop, expand and shape the relationship between the private and the public, the local and the global, mainstream and alternative media, corporations and clients, the state and civil society. The aim of the workshop is to bring together doctoral students and early career researchers who work on citizen media in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, China and East Asia, and the Arab world – areas where citizen media has been at the centre of political contestations, censorship and everyday struggles. The workshop will focus on methodological challenges of researching citizen media, whether these are conceptual, practical, ethical or political.

We welcome proposals for 15-minute presentations which discuss any topic relating to the methodologies of researching citizen media in any of these regions.  Papers should reflect the current research of postgraduates or early career researchers. The workshop will also include a guided training session on methods, and several presentations by expert scholars (detailed below). To apply, please send a title and a 300-word abstract togabrielle.hendry@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk  by the 22nd of November 2013.

The event is free of charge and open to doctoral students and early career researchers. Limited funds are available to cover travel and accommodation expenses.  To apply for funding assistance, please indicate so on your submission, and outline the estimated cost of your travel.  Successful candidates will be notified in December.

***

Please check our website for updates http://citizenmediamanchester.wordpress.com/

The event is organised by Adi Kuntsman, Mona Baker and Elena Barabantseva, and sponsored by The Centre for East European Language-Based Area Studies www.ceelbas.ac.uk/ , Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/crcees/ , White Rose East Asea Centre http://www.wreac.org/ , Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World http://www.casaw.imes.ed.ac.uk/ and The British Inter-University China Centre www.bicc.ac.uk

Provisional Programme

1.                  Theory and methods workshop
Luis Pérez González, The University of Manchester, UK:
‘Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives on Citizen Media’

The first part of this workshop will deliver an overview of key theoretical approaches and conceptual networks driving current research on citizen media and different instances of self-mediation. Participants will then be introduced to a range of methods of data collection and analysis in the field, with particular emphasis on qualitative approaches. The final part of the session will involve an interactive discussion of two exploratory case studies illustrating different theoretical and methodological perspectives on the study of citizen media.

2.                  Art and pedagogy workshop

John Johnston, Goldsmith College, UK

3.                  Plenary 1

Astrid Nordin, Lancaster University, UK: ‘Ironic ‘Resistance’ in Chinese Citizen Media Online’

The ‘online generation’ of Chinese citizens, or ‘netizens’, have developed numerous strategies for criticizing and avoiding the heavy online censorship regime to which they are subjected. One aspect of the ironic ego culture of particular interest here is the play with homonymous or near-homonymous words that can help an individual evade censorship software whilst simultaneously critiquing and ridiculing this censorship. Where the methodology of previous scholarship has attempted to pin down this form of expression to mean only one thing (resistance to politics, Bakhtinian carnival), this presentation argues that what is methodologically most interesting about these homonyms is their undecidability as simultaneously either/or and neither/nor. Such a methodological approach can make us better appreciate the complexity of this aspect of Chinese citizen media beyond the resistance/not-resistance binary.

4. Plenary 2

Georgiana Nicoarea, University of Bucharest, Romania, ‘Cairo’s Graffiti Goes Vir(tu)al. Facebook walls, their graffiti avenues and the afterlife’

The graffiti of downtown Cairo has become one of the trademarks of the January 25 Revolution. What looked at first like an over-productive artistic practice appears to be fuelling, through its overwhelming presence, the construction of the revolution’s imagery. Egyptian graffiti has travelled in various forms from real-life walls to Facebook walls and from there to official media and bookstores. This dynamic was initiated by what seemed to be a very natural step into virtual space where liberation graffiti accompanies citizen media and illustrates creative netizen activism. What can this journey tell us about the dynamics of Cairo’s urban inscriptions? Can the virtual public’s interaction with graffiti give more information about its outreach? Does this exposure help Cairo’s graffiti go viral or just virtual? These are the key questions that will be addressed in this talk.

5. Plenary 3

Eugenia Nim, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Humanities Research Center (Moscow), Altai State University (Barnaul), Russia: ‘”Nanodemonstrations” as Media Events: Networked Forms of the Russian Protest Movement’

‘Nanodemonstrations’ first became part of the Russian protest movement in 2012. Originating in the northern town of Apatity, a wave of ‘doll protests’ – demonstrations and other citizen actions which were staged by using lego dolls and soft toys – swept over many Russian cities. Forbes Magazine included the nanodemonstrations which took place in the Siberian city of Barnaul in the list of ‘the 12 loudest art protest actions in Russia’. The activists used social media to organise these actions; nanodemonstrations were planned as media events from the start. In my talk, I will attempt to apply different methodological approaches to the phenomenon of nanodemonstrations – from the theories of mediatisation of politics to the conceptions of contested urban spaces. My discussion will offer the potential theoretical models and frameworks that can be developed to analyse similar mediatised and theatrical forms of civil resistance.

‘China’s Urban Environment, Past and Present’ Conference, 16-18 January 2014

Posted on by

 ‘China’s Urban Environment, Past and Present’ Conference, 16-18 January 2014

Following the success of our first workshop in Leicester in December 2012, we will be holding our main conference entitled ‘China’s Urban Environment, Past and Present’ at the University of Aberdeen on Thursday 16th-Saturday 18th January 2014.

We are seeking research papers of 30 minutes’ duration which relate to the theme of the urban environment in historical and/or contemporary China. This could include, but is not confined to, the following areas:

  • Managing/governing the city
  • Urban geographies
  • City planning
  • Urban culture as it relates to the environment of the city
  • Comparative approaches to China’s urban environments

If you wish to offer a paper, please send a proposed title and an abstract of no more than 200 words to the BICC’s Project Assistant, Grania Pickard (Grania.Pickard@bristol.ac.uk) by Wednesday 20 November. Enquiries may be directed to Isabella Jackson (Isabella.Jackson@abdn.ac.uk).

New Perspectives on the Chinese 1950s Workshop: programme details

Posted on by

Final preparations are underway in York for the New Perspectives on the Chinese 1950s Workshop, an international event bringing together experts from around the world to discuss new developments in this burgeoning area of historical research.

The event follows a recent expansion in Asian History at the University of York (in Chinese, Japanese, Southeast and South Asian History) and is supported by the British Inter-University China Centre (AHRC) through the Chinese 1950s Network with additional support from the Department of History at the University of York. The initial CFP can be read here.

The Chinese 1950s network explores new approaches China’s domestic and international history in this period, it is hosted at the University of York and partnered with East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai.

The aim of the workshop is to promote the sharing of ideas on historical issues and primary source work, to establishment of a network of researchers and to explore the potential for future collaborative work.

Details of panels and attendees follow:

PLEASE NOTE: For logistical reasons this is an invitation-only event, panel details are for information only 

New Perspectives on the Chinese 1950s Workshop 

King’s Manor, University of York 

19-21 July 2012

Friday 19th July

Panel 1 – Writing the 1950s (culture, society, knowledge and history) Chair: Karl Gerth

Felix Wemheuer (University of Vienna), How to Write a People’s History of 1950s: A Thought Experiment

Jennifer E. Altehenger (King’s College London), Finding the Right Words: Encyclopedic dictionaries, self-help guides, and the politics of knowledge in China, 1949-1956.

Panel 2 – Individuals and Institutions, Chair: Julia Lovell

Xiaobing Tang (University of Michigan), The Idea of Socialist Art in the 1950s.

Christine Vidal (Université Lille III), From Beijing to Hangzhou: Song Yunbin and his experience of united front work (1949-1957).

Gordon Barrett (University of Bristol), Transnational Contacts and Foreign Policy: the CCP, Chinese Scientists, and the World Federation of Workers, 1947-1966

Saturday 20th July

Panel 3 – The Economy and Society, Chair: Tehyun Ma

Robert Cliver (Humboldt State University), Surviving Socialism: Private Industry and the Transition to Socialism in China

Felix Boecking (University of Edinburgh), Dismal scientists among the hundred flowers: Chinese economists in the 1950s

Benno Weiner (Appalachian State University, NC), High Tide on the High Plateau: The United Front and Pastoral Collectivization in Northeast Tibet (Amdo), 1955-1956

Keynote by Yang Kuisong (East China Normal University/Peking University) on the state of the field and future directions

Panel 4 – China and Japan in the 1950s, Chair: Chris Hess

Amy King (Australian National University), Dealing with the ‘Enemy’: Overseas Japanese in the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China, 1945-1956

Barak Kushner (University of Cambridge), The Dissolution of the Japanese Empire and the Struggle for Legitimacy in Postwar East Asia, 1945–1965

Sunday 21st July

Panel 5 – China’s Urban 1950s, Chair: Jon Howlett

Karl Gerth (University California, San Diego), Compromising with Consumerism in Socialist China: Transnational Flows and Internal Tensions in ‘Socialist Advertising’

Christian Hess (Sophia University), Living the socialist high life? Colonial legacies and the making of urban socialism in Dalian, 1945-1955

Jiang Jin (East China Normal University), Urbanism vs. Communism? Best-Seller theatres in Early PRC Shanghai

Introducing Dr Mike Gow

Posted on by

Mike Gow ProfileI was fortunate enough to receive funding from BICC as part of the first cohort of scholarships awarded in 2006.  I undertook my academic training at Masters and Doctoral level at the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Bristol, supervised by Professor Susan Robertson and Professor Jeffrey Henderson.  BICC has been the determining factor in shaping my career, affording me an opportunity for academic development that I otherwise would not have had.  In addition, I have made some lifelong friends through BICC who are already active as China scholars across a range of disciplines.

My research focuses on the strategic transformation of Chinese higher education, and aims to understand how national modernization projects are materialized within China’s political society and then mediated and institutionalized.  The thesis recognizes processes of negotiation, consent and coercion between China’s political society and civil society, discerning a tightly interwoven relationship between the state and Chinese HE and also proposes that HE is central to the negotiation of hegemony within the contemporary Chinese historic bloc.  However, it also aims to understand the complex social, cultural and institutional environment of Chinese HE through which overarching national projects must be processed.  The research utilizes Burawoy’s Extended Case Method and theoretical framework constructed around Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, field and habitus.

I have taught a range of subjects over the last few years, including Contemporary Chinese Society, Chinese Political Systems, Contemporary Chinese Cultural Conventions and Chinese Business Context.  As of August 2013 I will be taking a post at NYU Shanghai as Global Postdoctoral Fellow in the inaugural year of this new campus of New York University.  My role will be research-focused, but I am also looking forward to contributing to a Freshman course “Global Perspectives on Society” led by NYU Shanghai Vice Chancellor Professor Jeffrey Lehman.  The course will introduce students to some of the greatest thinkers from both western and Chinese traditions.

Chinese HE continues to be the focus of my research and I blog on Chinese HE, internationalization of Chinese HE and Chinese HE policy at http://www.thedaxue.org

New Perspectives on the Chinese 1950s Workshop; 19-21 July 2012

Posted on by

New Perspectives on the Chinese 1950s Workshop

King’s Manor, University of York

19-21 July 2012

This workshop has been funded by the British Inter-University China Centre (AHRC) through the Chinese 1950s Network. The network explores new approaches China’s domestic and international history in this period, it is hosted at the University of York and partnered with East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai.

The aim of the workshop is to promote the sharing of ideas on historical issues and primary source work, the establishment of a network of researchers and to explore the potential for future collaborative work.

PLEASE NOTE:  For logistical reasons this is an invitation-only event, panel details are for information only

 Friday 19th July

Panel 1 – Writing the 1950s (culture, society, knowledge and history) Chair: Karl Gerth

Felix Wemheuer (University of Vienna), How to Write a People’s History of 1950s: A Thought Experiment

Jennifer E. Altehenger (King’s College London), Finding the Right Words: Encyclopedic dictionaries, self-help guides, and the politics of knowledge in China, 1949-1956.

Panel 2 – Individuals and Institutions, Chair: Julia Lovell

Xiaobing Tang (University of Michigan), The Idea of Socialist Art in the 1950s.

Christine Vidal (Université Lille III), From Beijing to Hangzhou: Song Yunbin and his experience of united front work (1949-1957).

Gordon Barrett (University of Bristol), Transnational Contacts and Foreign Policy: the CCP, Chinese Scientists, and the World Federation of Workers, 1947-1966

 Saturday 20th July

Panel 3 – The Economy and Society, Chair: Tehyun Ma

Robert Cliver (Humboldt State University), Surviving Socialism: Private Industry and the Transition to Socialism in China

Felix Boecking (University of Edinburgh), Dismal scientists among the hundred flowers: Chinese economists in the 1950s

Benno Weiner (Appalachian State University, NC), High Tide on the High Plateau: The United Front and Pastoral Collectivization in Northeast Tibet (Amdo), 1955-1956

Keynote by Yang Kuisong (East China Normal University/Peking University) on the state of the field and future directions

Panel 4 – China and Japan in the 1950s, Chair: Chris Hess

Amy King (Australian National University), Dealing with the ‘Enemy’: Overseas Japanese in the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China, 1945-1956

Barak Kushner (University of Cambridge), The Dissolution of the Japanese Empire and the Struggle for Legitimacy in Postwar East Asia, 1945–1965

 Sunday 21st July

Panel 5 – China’s Urban 1950s, Chair: Jon Howlett

Karl Gerth (University California, San Diego), Compromising with Consumerism in

Socialist China: Transnational Flows and Internal Tensions in ‘Socialist Advertising’

Christian Hess (Sophia University), Living the socialist high life? Colonial legacies and the making of urban socialism in Dalian, 1945-1955

Jiang Jin (East China Normal University), Urbanism vs. Communism? Best-Seller theatres in Early PRC Shanghai

Introducing Dr Nicola Horsburgh

Posted on by

NH profileI was extremely fortunate to receive a BICC studentship for my MPhil and DPhil studies at the University of Oxford – this support enabled me to be in the position I am today, as a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, working on China and nuclear weapons issues. I’m proud to be part of the BICC network – many of the researchers have become close friends, and I have immense respect for the senior academics that have helmed the BICC. As part of this network, in 2011, I was able to participate in the China’s Futures seminar organised by Professor William Callahan, as well as the China: Innovation and Invention workshop, which I co-organised with Astrid Nordin. Both these collaborations resulted in publications: a China Information article on Chinese nuclear strategy, and together with Astrid Nordin and Professor Shaun Breslin, a co-edited volume titled Chinese Politics and International Relations: Innovation and Invention, coming out with Routledge this year.

I started my studentship with no prior background on China or the language, so the BICC proved crucial in laying the intellectual groundwork and in introducing me to the scholarly community, allowing me to find my feet in the China field. Of course, the financial support mattered a great deal too. As a result of BICC funding, I was able to conduct extensive fieldwork abroad during my doctoral studies, notably as a visiting scholar at the Arms Control Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing for the 2010-11 academic year, and at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in the US in spring 2009 and winter 2011. This fieldwork was essential since the nature of my doctoral research was somewhat sensitive: nuclear weapons. My DPhil, supervised by Professor Rosemary Foot, was defended with no revisions in March 2012. The thesis explored China’s role in global nuclear politics since 1949. One of my major findings was that Maoist China shaped global nuclear politics to a far greater degree than was previously understood. The thesis has since been turned into a manuscript and is currently under review for publication.

As a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow based at Oxford, I continue my interest in China and nuclear issues. My three year research project examines what it means to be a responsible nuclear armed state, with a particular emphasis on China. Overall, the project is more conceptual and contemporary than my doctoral research. I also have a number of side projects on the go. I contribute to the 21st Century Concerts of Power project led by Professor Andrew Hurrell at Oxford, focusing on global governance related to nuclear weapons, as well as Chinese conceptions of great power cooperation. I am also co-writing, together with Kate Sullivan at Oxford, an article on Chinese and Indian approaches to nuclear restraint. In another project, with Amy King of Australia National University, I survey the use of new Chinese sources in the study of China in the International Relations field.

My research also has an impact outside academia. In 2011, I designed and taught a graduate course on Chinese nuclear weapons policy at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies for students seeking government careers and visiting diplomats working in nuclear-related policy areas. More recently, in January and March 2013, I took part in the FCO sponsored UK-China nuclear dialogue organised by King’s College London and Renmin University. Finally, this summer, I have been invited to attend the EU Consortium on Nonproliferation in Brussels as well as the ‘Towards global nuclear order: deterrence, assurance and reductions’ conference at Wilton Park in the UK.

I wouldn’t have been able to do any of the above without the sustained support I received from the BICC for five years. Support that has been not just financial, but also academic and social, rooting me in the China and International Relations academic fields as well as policy communities in the UK, EU, US and China.

Oxford: Philippe Régnier talk at 2.15 pm, Monday 20 May

Posted on by

Philippe Régnier

Professor, SIDGS, University of Ottawa, Canada

will speak on

“EU cooperation in science & technology with China and India:

recent trends and shifting paradigms”

Phillipe Regnier

Prof Regnier is the co-author of the 2012 independent report to the EU Commission reviewing the EU-India cooperation agreement in science and technology (2007-11)

All welcome

2.15 pm, Monday 20 May

Room 205, Institute for Chinese Studies, Walton Street, University of Oxford

For more information, contact: rana.mitter@chinese.ox.ac.uk

New Publications by BICC Researchers

Posted on by

Modern Asian Studies image - Jon

Two BICC researchers have just published important new work.

Jon Howlett, University of York, has had an article published in Modern Asian Studies:  ‘The British boss is gone and will never return’: Communist takeovers of British companies in Shanghai (1949–1954)

 

Sam Geall book front coverSam Geall, Departmental Lecturer in Human Geography of China at Oxford and BICC funded student, has edited China and the Environment: The Green Revolution

Blurb: Sixteen of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in China. A serious water pollution incident occurs once every two to three days. China’s breakneck growth causes great concern about its global environmental impacts, as others look to China as a source for possible future solutions to climate change. But how are Chinese people really coming to grips with environmental problems? This book provides access to otherwise unknown stories of environmental activism and forms the first real-life account of China and its environmental tensions.

Introducing Dr Isabella Jackson

Posted on by

Isabella Jacson portraitIt is no exaggeration to say that I owe my career to the BICC. My BICC studentship enabled me to study Chinese from scratch to the point where I can use it for my research and in building networks with scholars in related fields in China. This commenced with a two-year MPhil in Modern Chinese Studies at Oxford, which included six months’ study in Beijing and intensive language and area studies research training. I completed my MPhil dissertation under the supervision of Professor Rana Mitter on the evolving Chinese perspective on and representation of the Shanghai Municipal Council and the broader International Settlement from the Republican era to the present. This had a direct bearing on my doctoral research, for which I returned to Bristol (where I had completed my BA and MA) to work with Professor Robert Bickers, the leading expert on treaty-port Shanghai.

My PhD was entitled ‘Managing Shanghai: The International Settlement administration and the development of the city, 1900-1943’. It examined the nature and functions of the council which ran the International Settlement, the heart of Shanghai, in the decades of dramatic change in the first half of the twentieth century. I argued that the council functioned as a semi-colonial and transnational authority – concepts which I tested within the unique political environment of Republican China’s treaty ports. This provides a new, precise formulation of the nature of western colonialism in China that has broad ramifications for the fields of Chinese history and colonial history.

The BICC supported my research comprehensively, including the provision of tailored advanced Chinese reading classes in Bristol and attendance at Republican Chinese text reading classes in Oxford. It also paid for me to spend a year conducting research in the newly opened Shanghai Municipal Archives, where I found the bulk of my materials, and to continue my language study with private tuition while there. In addition, I was able to secure funds from the Worldwide Universities Network to attend a masterclass in Sydney and conduct research in the State Library of New South Wales, and I spent three months researching as a fellow of the Kluge Center in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. My dissertation was awarded the University of Bristol’s annual Faculty Prize for the Best Dissertation in the Arts and I am currently adapting it for publication as a monograph.

During my PhD I revised my MA dissertation for publication, using my new Chinese language skills to include a broader range of sources. The resulting article, ‘The Raj on Nanjing Road: Sikh Policemen in Treaty-Port Shanghai’, appeared in Modern Asian Studies last year.

When in the final stages of writing up my dissertation, I began a one-year post as Departmental Lecturer in Modern Chinese Studies at Oxford’s Institute for Chinese Studies. It was an excellent, though demanding, first academic position, furnishing me with a broad range of teaching experience on modern China and experience of administration, including directing the MPhil in Modern Chinese Studies. I moved from Oxford to my current post as the Helen Bruce Lecturer in Modern East Asian History. Mine is one of a number of newly-created posts in Chinese and East Asian Studies as departments have responded to student demand to study modern China, and the BICC has been instrumental in ensuring the next generation of China scholars are available to meet this demand.

I direct the BICC Chinese Urban Studies Network, based in Aberdeen with partners at the University of Leicester’s Centre for Urban History, Lyon’s Institut d’Asie Orientale, and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. We held our first workshop in December 2012 and will be following up with a visit to Shanghai in August 2013 and a major conference in January 2014, bringing together scholars from different disciplines concerned with the study of Chinese cities. The BICC thus continues to be a major force in my life as a researcher, as I consider the role played by the Shanghai Municipal Council, and similar institutions in other treaty ports, in shaping urban China.