UNC Collaborates With Chinese on Beijing Olympic Study

They are part of "Beijing's Olympic Decade," a project that focuses on the 10-year period that began in 1998 in which momentous change is expected to impact the city and the surrounding area because of the Olympic Games.

Twenty researchers from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences will collaborate with 30 UNC faculty members.

UNC professors Judith Farquhar, Jim Hevia, and Gang Yue are coordinating the project, which consists of a multidisciplinary group of studies designed to explore the ways the Olympics will transform Beijing and the Western Pacific area.

"This study is unique," Farquhar said. "Past groups viewed the Olympics as an international institution of politics. We, on the other hand, are focusing on the city and reaching out into all fields of study to make it a multidimensional effort."

The study of China will be particularly interesting because of the country's ongoing modernization process, Hevia said.

"A massive amount of economic growth is occurring right now, and this will happen alongside the preparation for the games."

Hevia said the transformation of China is one of the most astonishing world events.

"The city of Beijing is going to be totally rebuilt with a totally new infrastructure," he said.

Farquhar said she hopes the project will deepen and broaden the University's ties with scholars, policymakers, artists and the overall population in China.

"Part of the overall goal is to internationalize UNC and make students aware of issues going on in China and the rest of the world," Farquhar said.

Hevia said the study is an unprecedented effort because of its focus on collaboration.

"This is somewhat of a new idea," he said. "The project will help us know more about rapid social change in a globalizing situation."

UNC is the best institution to take part in this study, Hevia added.

"We have a broad and diverse faculty with a comparative framework that they can bring into the study," Hevia said. "We have many bright researchers who can bring fresh questions to the views on China."

Students in the study abroad program in Beijing also will work with CASS social scientists.

"They won't be researchers, but they will have a snapshot view of Beijing," Hevia said. "At least one of the courses in the program will be related to the research study."

Researchers will be traveling back and forth between the United States and China.

The results will be published in both English and Chinese.

So far, the project has held two workshops, one in Beijing and one in Chapel Hill. Next July, UNC researchers will travel to Beijing to meet with their CASS collaborators for a third workshop.

"There will be a sense of equal contribution," Hevia said. "More importantly, though, we want UNC students to have an opportunity to see China in a new way."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.