RAS Beijing – ‘Without radio there is no nation” 9/4/25 in-person

Posted: April 4th, 2025 | No Comments »

‘Without radio there is no nation” an RASBJ in-person discussion between John Alekna and Jonathan Cheng of John Alekna’s book, “Seeking News, Making China: The Surprising and Intertwined History of News and Politics in Modern China”

Wednesday Apr. 9 from 7-8 PM Beijing Time – drinks and canapés from 6.30PM

La Maison Lyonnaise 2F, 44 Guanghua Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing

北京市朝阳区光华路44号（巴西大使馆对面）

Over the last 20 years, developments in communications technology have revolutionised how we receive news, overturning political systems in the process. This phenomenon is hardly new. Interlocking technological, informational, and political transformations have occurred many times in the past. John Alekna traces one example – the history of news in twentieth-century China – to demonstrate how large structural changes in technology and politics are heard and felt. Scrutinising the flow of news to reveal who has power and why, uncovering the connections between different regions, peoples, and social classes, John Alekna weaves together rural and urban history to tell a story of the rise of mass politics in modern China, including the remarkably large role of women.

John Alekna is Assistant Professor of the History of Science at Peking University. His research focuses on information, technology, and the emergence of modernity in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Asia. He is currently working on a biography of a Qing scientist-turned-explorer who led an 1879 expedition across the Himalayas into India. At Beida he teaches the History and Philosophy of Science, the History of Science in China, and Information as Material, Theory, and Practice. John Alekna’s book, “Seeking News, Making China: Information, Technology, and the Emergence of Mass Society” came out in March 2024.

Jonathan Cheng is China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, overseeing the Journal’s coverage of the world’s second-largest economy across a range of areas including politics, economics, business, technology and society. He oversees a team of more than two dozen correspondents and researchers in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore and New York with responsibility for the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.
RMB 200 for members of RASBJ and of partner RAS branches, RMB 300 for non-members. Includes a welcome drink and canapés. You may find payment by Alipay easier than by Wechat; you can also pay by credit card.

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