Harvard Opens Major China Office

The University opens a major new facility to encourage research, student involvement, and teaching across the disciplines and professions.

Harvard Center Shanghai is in the new office tower to the left (top); the 88-story Jin Mao Tower and 101-story World Financial Center rise to the right.

The University is expanding its academic engagement with the People's Republic of China, opening a large new Harvard Center Shanghai in March to support faculty scholarship, student visits (for internships, public service, research, and education), and even teaching. The facility was formally inaugurated with a day-long series of academic presentations and speeches featuring deans, faculty members, and alumni; a banquet keynoted by President Drew Faust; and other events. A report on some of the activities, "Global Reach," appears in the May-June issue of Harvard Magazine (and "Changing, Challenging China," a roundtable discussion among faculty experts and alumni active in the People's Republic, appeared in the March-April issue).

Much more detailed coverage of the major speeches, some of the panel discussions, and other events outside the Harvard center during the March program proper appears below. (You can also read coverage by the Harvard University Gazette of President Faust’s visit to alumni and officials in Japan, with a large delegation of faculty members, immediately preceding the China events.)

A generous gift to support international reporting, from a friend of Harvard Magazine who wishes to remain anonymous, enabled editor John S. Rosenberg to visit Shanghai in March to cover these events and presentations.

View the program of events from March 18, and use these links to navigate to Harvard Magazine's expanded coverage, with sources of further information about Harvard's wide range of activities in China:

The Chinese Century?  (keynote address by William C. Kirby)

Architecture and Urbanism: Shanghai and Beyond  (a panel discussion)

The Moral Limits of Markets  (a luncheon address by Michael Sandel)

Who Cares About Chinese Culture? (a panel discussion)

China's Newest Revolution: Health for All?  (a panel discussion)

Innovations Changing the World: New Technologies, Harvard, and China  (remarks by David B. Yoffie)

President Drew Faust’s address at the evening banquet

Connections to China: Caregiving, Ecological City Planning

You might also like

Why Harvard Needs International Students

An ed school professor on why global challenges demand global experiences

Free Speech, the Bomb-and Donald Trump

A Harvard cardiologist on the unlikely alliances that shaped a global movement to prevent nuclear war

Harvard Plans Contingencies for International Students

The Kennedy School and School of Public Health are developing online options.

Most popular

What Trump Means for John Roberts’s Legacy

Executive power is on the docket at the Supreme Court.

How Maga Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Medford’s Royall House and Slave Quarters

Preserving black history as “an act of liberation”

Explore More From Current Issue

Man in gray sweater standing in hallway with colorful abstract art on wall.

How Do Single-Celled Organisms Learn and Remember

A Harvard neuroscientist’s quest to model memory in single-celled organisms

Julie Riew, wearing a white dress, playing guitar and singing into a microphone on stage.

Bringing Korean Stories to Life

Composer Julia Riew writes the musicals she needed to see.

John Goldberg

Harvard In the News

University layoffs, professors in court, and a new Law School dean