2025-07-142025-07-14http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/13350As China rises to prominence, current scholarship examines the strategies of appeal China has deployed to penetrate different parts of the globe at the expense of American dominance. One such strategy has been the rhetoric of “peaceful development” (hepingfazhan) and “harmonious society” (hexieshehuì), devised to ease anxieties about China’s global expansion, maintain authoritarian rule at home, and articulate an inclusive identity for its diverse populations. China still faces the problem of effective governance from within, for coinciding with its economic growth is the political awakening of its citizens and with it the rise of organized activism on an unprecedented level. Empirical studies increasingly reveal serious challenges to the one-party state including rights consciousness campaigns, labor disputes, ethnic conflicts, religion-state tensions, protests about the inadequacies of official disaster management, and cries for democratic governance. This symposium provided an interdisciplinary platform for scholars to examine the appeal of a rising China and the challenge of governance it faces in the early 21st century.Symposium