International students gathered at the 2nd World Conference on China Studies to discover how digital applied sciences are remodeling analysis methodologies and opening new frontiers in China studies, highlighting each alternatives and challenges in the digital age.
The sub-forum, themed “China studies in the era of digital intelligence: opportunities and challenges”, held from Tuesday to Wednesday, introduced collectively specialists from a number of international locations to debate the intersection of expertise and conventional Chinese studies.
Lin Shangli, president of Renmin University of China, emphasised that all through human historical past, improvements in communication media have persistently catalyzed mental breakthroughs and educational development.
“As we enter the digital era, the impact of technology is unprecedented. Scholars now stand on new platforms, using digital tools to reinterpret traditional texts and unlock classical codes that were previously indecipherable, drawing upon 5,000 years of Chinese civilization to advance global development and civilizational progress,” Lin stated.
Digital humanities has change into an integral part of China studies in the information age. According to Feng Huiling, director of the institute of digital humanities at Renmin University of China, regardless of its comparatively current emergence in China a couple of decade in the past, the discipline has proven exceptional development.
“The field has achieved coordinated development across research, education, and practical applications, supported by academic communities,” Feng defined. By 2023, China had established 66 digital humanities analysis establishments and 28 associated pan-digital humanities analysis facilities, with the whole quantity anticipated to exceed 100 by 2025.
Liu Wei, director and analysis professor of the institute of science and expertise info at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, introduced a imaginative and prescient for China”s digital humanities from the perspective of autonomous knowledge systems. He emphasized that building such systems involves more than merely digitizing ancient texts, cultural relics, and intangible heritage. “It’s about reconstructing data sovereignty and making certain Chinese historical past, thought, and aesthetics are understood and transmitted in the digital world via China’s personal perspective,” Liu stated.
Liu stated that the idea of sovereign AI emphasizes each technological and cultural sovereignty, requiring synthetic intelligence to understand nationwide linguistic logic, cultural frequent sense, and social values whereas aligning with distinctive ideological traits.
Practical purposes of digital expertise in China studies have been showcased by a number of audio system. Donald Sturgeon, assistant professor of division of pc science at Durham University, demonstrated his workforce’s AI-powered database of historic Chinese texts. “Our platform processes over 7 billion characters of content, implementing both AI and crowdsourcing approaches for text digitization, annotation, and multilingual translation,” he launched.
However, students additionally acknowledged important challenges in their analysis, together with lacking entries in historic texts and complex naming techniques. Xu Jianwei, professor of faculty of liberal arts at Renmin University of China detailed the difficulties in digitizing classical studies, noting how Chinese classics’ evolution poses distinctive challenges in digital preservation.
Liah Greenfeld, professor emeritus of sociology, political science and anthropology at Boston University, provided a broader perspective on Chinese civilization. Referring to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she famous how China’s rise “like the Himalayas” prompted the world to reassess its understanding of civilization. “Western civilization is not the whole story,” she emphasised. “Each civilization should be evaluated within its own historical context rather than through external frameworks.”
“World China studies in the digital era belongs both to China and the world,” Lin remarked, expressing hope that knowledge derived from China’s 5 millennia of civilization might illuminate the path ahead for world civilizational growth.