Research: Contract Collecting and Cultivation of China’s Floristic Diversity for Conservation
Arnold Arboretum
$29,160
Since 2015, the Arnold Arboretum’s Campaign for the Living Collections has aimed to acquire 395 plant species from temperate regions worldwide for research and conservation, with China—home to about 33,000 native species and 42% of the target list—being the most critical region. Fieldwork in China ceased after a 2018 expedition to Western Hubei due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2023 the Arboretum adopted a new strategy by engaging contract collectors. Partnering with Rongsen Lu, a retired professor from the Chengdu Institute of Biology and head of Chengdu Red Leaf Biological Science and Technology Co., the Arboretum launched expeditions in Sichuan and Hubei. Between July and November, Lu’s team collected 34 species, seven of which are entirely new to North American cultivation and extremely rare globally, with representation in three or fewer institutional collections. The arboretum plans to continue its acquisitions to keep advancing conservation efforts and broadening scientific understanding of China’s rich floristic diversity, which reinforces the Arboretum’s mission to preserve rare and threatened plant species.
Research: U.S.-China Financial Relationship
Hal Scott, Nomura Professor of International Financial Systems, Emeritus
$50,000
The Program on International Financial Systems (PIFS) has launched a multi-year collaboration with the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to study the value of the U.S.-China financial relationship and the potential costs of decoupling, with a focus on banking and capital markets. The initiative has two components: independent research and annual policy conferences. PIFS will engage academics from Harvard and other universities to quantify the benefits and the risks of financial ties and the risks of decoupling for both economies, while the PBOC will conduct parallel research from a Chinese perspective, examining impacts such as capital costs and investor returns. Together, PIFS and the PBOC will convene yearly conferences of academics, policymakers, and private sector experts to share findings, assess policy implications, and identify future research needs. Hosting duties will alternate between the U.S. and China, beginning with PIFS at Harvard. By combining rigorous research with policy dialogue, this collaboration will provide valuable insights to help both policymakers and the public understand the consequences of financial decoupling and the importance of sustained cooperation between the two countries.
Research: A pangenome approach to investigating biodiversity of birds in China
Scott Edwards, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
$49,947
Biodiversity is increasingly threatened by human-driven change, and understanding its genetic basis is essential for predicting and mitigating impacts. China, with its extraordinary biodiversity shaped by diverse climates and topographies, offers an important setting, particularly across extreme gradients like the Tibetan Plateau, where avian adaptation has been studied but genomic diversity remains poorly characterized. Recent advances in long-read sequencing and pangenome approaches now allow comprehensive catalogs of genetic variation, including structural variants that influence adaptation, gene regulation, and resilience to climate change. To address this gap, Professor Edwards proposes a collaborative project with Chinese partners to investigate genomic diversity and adaptation in two bird species: the Common Rosefinch (Carpodacus erythrinus), closely related to the House Finch already under study in the Edwards Lab, and the Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus), a widespread species spanning diverse environments. A pilot pangenome analysis of ~20 Tree Sparrows across an elevational gradient on the Tibetan Plateau will identify structural variants linked to altitude adaptation, while comparing Rosefinch and House Finch genomes will reveal long-term patterns of structural variation. Through workshops and joint experiments, this project will strengthen collaboration, advance biodiversity research, and provide critical preliminary data for future large-scale studies.
Research: How Young Adults Cope with Economic Predicaments
Ya-Wen Lei, Professor of Sociology
$50,000
Young adults across the Taiwan Strait face mounting economic challenges that shape their daily lives and political outlooks. In China, youth unemployment hit a record 21.3% in June 2023 before the government ceased publishing the data, while high housing costs, real estate instability, widening inequality, and reduced social mobility further fuel insecurity. In Taiwan, young people contend with low wages, unaffordable housing, inflation, and inequality, prompting political shifts: once strong supporters of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), many young people now turn to the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and its leader Wen-Je Ko, who captured 26% of the presidential and 22% of legislative votes in recent elections. This project, led by Professor Ya-Wen Lei, investigates how young adults aged 18–35 in China and Taiwan understand and respond to these difficulties, considering transitions to work, family formation, and housing struggles within different political regimes. Using both quantitative survey data (Asia Barometer, World Values Survey) and qualitative interviews with 100 young adults in Shanghai and Taipei, the study will reveal how economic insecurity influences social and political behavior. Building on prior research such as Mary Brinton’s Lost in Transition, it adds a comparative political dimension, contributing to scholarship on youth, inequality, and instability in East Asia.
Research: Research Proposal on Chinese Soundscapes
Jie Li, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
$50,000
Professor Jie Li plans to research Chinese soundscapes from the 1920s to the 2020s, laying the foundation for two book projects and two future courses while collaborating with colleagues in China, North America, and Europe. Her current book, Revolutionary Echoes: Radio, Loudspeakers, and Noise in Modern China, traces sonic culture from early wireless broadcasting to COVID-19 soundscapes, drawing on “earwitnesses” of radios, loudspeakers, sirens, Maoist campaigns, consumerist noise, and viral clips like Shanghai’s 2022 Voices of April. Building on methodologies developed for her earlier book Cinematic Guerrillas (2023), she and her team aim to collect more oral histories and audiovisual materials, including recordings, LPs, tapes, scripts, and magazines, to support both research and a graduate seminar on Chinese Soundscapes. In parallel, she is developing with Professor Jennifer Liu a future course tentatively titled Chinese Karaoke, exploring songs from the Republican era to Jay Chou through linguistic, cultural, and media analysis, complemented by student performance and music video creation. Preparing this course will involve gathering albums, songbooks, films, and magazines like People’s Music and may evolve into a textbook. She will also collaborate with Professor Barbara Mittler at Heidelberg to create a digital archive and co-author a project on modern Chinese songs.
Special Support:
Jennifer Liu, Professor of the Practice in Language Pedagogy
$1,500
Harvard Taipei Academy is an annual program that provides students the opportunity to complete a full academic year’s worth of Chinese language study in the course of an eight-week summer session. For the FY 2024 cycle, Harvard China Fund awards a faculty grant of $1,500 to Professor Jennifer Liu to support the Harvard Taipei Academy instructors.