For the third year in a row, the Hoover Institution Library and Archives hosted the Hoover Institution Workshop on Modern China during the first week of August. This year’s workshop, “China and Its Neighbors: What History Can Tell Policy Makers,” featured five speakers who presented their research to a wide range of audience members.

The speakers included Pierre Asselin (Hawaii Pacific University), Steve Phillips (Towson University), Deborah Kaple (Princeton University), Kawashima Shin (Tokyo University) and Judd C. Kinzley (University of Wisconsin at Madison).

Dr. Hsiao-ting Lin, a research fellow and curator of the East Asia Collection at the Hoover Institution, helped start this workshop three years ago in hopes of shedding more light on China.

“My idea was that in order to help us understand the rise of China, we must look at its past,” he said. “At Hoover we have an archive and house lots of important historical documents before and after 1949. So we have lots of Chinese source materials.”

This year’s modern China workshop extended its invitation to scholars, students and faculty around the Bay Area in order to open up Hoover’s resources and collections. In addition, the workshop served as a place for Western scholars to meet their Asian peers to share and exchange ideas. Lin also noted that bringing together so many scholars with different expertise created a platform for learning and discussion.

According to Lin, this year’s workshop, like the previous years’, was a huge success, attracting a full house audience each session. “I hoped that this workshop bridged the gap between Hoover’s archival materials and research fellowship,” he said.