Report on the 6th biennial conference of NACS, Oslo Norway
The 6th Biennial Conference of the Nordic Association of Chinese Studies was held at the University of Oslo, Blindern from 17 to 19 of June 2003.
There were altogether approximately 70 participants with a fairly even representation of junior and senior researchers from all four countries. Beside people in academia, there were also participants from other professions such as the Foreign Ministry and Norwegian Broadcasting Company. Interest organizations such as Framtiden i våre hender (The Future in Our Hands) working with specific topics on China were able to get in touch with specialists in the field who can supply them with qualified information and guidance for further research.
The conference began with the keynote speech "Friend or Foe: The Impact of China's Accession to the World Trade Organization on ASEAN counties" delivered by freelance journalist and author Shu Shin Luh from Taiwan. Thereafter followed 26 papers presented over 6 sessions. All papers had discussants who gave critiques and evaluations to the paper which was a especially valuable training experience for the junior researchers who were doing this for the first time.
There were also special presentations about NIAS, the Nordic Center in Shanghai and research projects led by Stockholm University.
At the end of the conference, a roundtable discussion on the topic of SARS and China was arranged. This discussion had been announced as an open session, and there were several participants from the media and research institutes in Oslo.
About 50 people attended the discussion.
Information about the conference and papers which were presented are to be found on the web-site of the association:
and will be kept updated by the new board.
With China playing an increasingly active and important role in the global community, more scholars will devote studies linked to China and Chinese studies. The role of the association is to promote scholarly interests, exchange and co-operation between the Nordic nations. Activities and arrangements of NACS, such as our biennial conference, provide invaluable opportunities for participants to meet, to discuss, to establish and to strengthen scholarly ties. Under the 6th Biennial conference, we believe we have attained some of these goals.
Baisha Liu, chairperson of NACS 2001-2003
Elin Sæther, secretary of NACS 2001-2003