The Berkeley China Initiative brings together UC Berkeley's exceptional resources to strengthen research and teaching about China across all disciplines and professions, forge new international partnerships, and enrich public life by communicating those results.
To accomplish this, we have undertaken a new funding initiative to strengthen several key areas of China Studies at Berkeley. Learn more about this initiative and BCI here.
The Center for Chinese Studies (CCS) is the largest and most active research unit within the Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS).
Annual Symposium 2004
Established in 1957 with funding from the Ford Foundation and the State of California, the Center's mission was to coordinate and support the study of contemporary China on the Berkeley campus. The Center invited scholars to Berkeley to conduct research on the People's Republic of China and on topics of interest in contemporary Chinese studies. In addition, the Center offered language instruction in modern Chinese and its scholars undertook the writing of several dictionaries of contemporary Chinese usage. A series of monographs and occasional papers, published under Center auspices, appeared in the mid-60's and continues to the present time. A contemporary China reading room was established in the early 1960's. As materials from and about the People's Republic of China and Chinese Communist Party history became plentiful, the reading room was transformed into the Center for Chinese Studies Library and a full-time librarian was hired to build its collection and serve its growing number of faculty, students, and scholar patrons. In 2008, the Center for Chinese Studies Library was merged with the East Asian Library to become the new CV Starr East Asian Library.
Today, the CCS covers all areas of China studies with an energetic program of extracurricular activities. In addition to lectures and colloquia, CCS convenes large-scale symposia and smaller conferences on key issues, inviting national and international specialists to confer and share their research. CCS also hosts individual visiting scholars and serves to facilitate the visits of Chinese delegations and other China-related activities on campus. CCS provides research grants annually to Berkeley faculty in Chinese studies, and awards postdoctoral fellowships to promising young scholars in the field.
Research sponsored by the Center now focuses not only on the People's Republic of China but on the Chinese societies of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia as well. As the Chinese faculty community at Berkeley grew during the 1960's, the mission of the Center expanded to support scholarly activities in the full range of China's historical experience. Faculty and emeritus faculty in Chinese studies are present in more than twenty-five departments on the Berkeley campus, ranging from Anthropology to Sociology. In 2008, the Center launched the new National Center for K-16 Chinese Language Pedagogy, as part of an effort to strengthen teaching of Chinese language at Berkeley, and throughout California.