Description

A significant East–West interface with global implications unfolded during the half millennium of “Luso-globalization” from Portuguese explore Vasco da Gama’s 1498 arrival in India to Macau’s 1999 retrocession to Chinese rule that ended five centuries of European colonialism in Asia. The year 2013 also marks the half-millennium of a prelude to the Luso-Macau legacies—the arrival in China of the first Portuguese Jorge Alvares who planted the roots for today’s thriving Sino-Lusophone interface that is largely Macao-based/facilitated. Such Sino-Luso-Macao networks are genuinely global, transcending three oceans, linking four continents and spanning five centuries. Of geopolitical relevance today, the Sino-Lusophone Economic Cooperation Forum as headquartered in Macao engages nine countries with a total population of 1.5 billion to sustain a large share of the global economy. This talk will sketch some outstanding features in the strategic roles performed by Macao with its Luso-enriched heritages; it will also prospect for trends ahead amid China’s intensifying world-wide engagement.

Ming K. CHAN is visiting fellow, Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University, where he was a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, 1976-80/1999-2009 and ran its Hong Kong Documentary Archives project. Born in Hong Kong, he obtained 3 US degrees, including a Stanford PhD in 1975 at age 25. He taught at the University of Hong Kong during 1980-97 as a twice elected “Best Teacher.” Holder of endowed chairs at Swarthmore College and Grinnell College, he served as visiting professor at Duke, UCLA, Mount Holyoke and El Colegio de Mexico, and he was also twice visiting fellow at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, 1992 and 1998. Author/editor of 14 academic volumes and over 80 articles/book chapters on Chinese studies topics, he is General Editor of the series published by M E Sharpe-NY, with 12 titles released since 1991.

Light refreshment will provided. Please RSVP by October 1, 2013.