March 2026 China Seminar

On By friendsofewcIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
China Seminar – March 12, 2026
Click Here to Register

Hong Kong’s Judiciary in the Security Era:
Between a Rock and a Hard Place

featuring
Carole J. Petersen
Cades Foundation Professor
William S. Richardson School of Law
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Speaker’s summary:
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) still has constitutional status in Hong Kong. In practice, however, the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) is compelled to avoid confrontation with Beijing. The CFA has thus declared that it cannot review the constitutionality of the National Security Law and has accepted the local government’s definition of “national security,” thereby broadening the scope of permissible restrictions on civil liberties. It is arguable that the judiciary is facilitating Hong Kong’s transition to authoritarianism. Yet, in selected cases, the courts have continued to rule against the local government and to enforce ICCPR-protected rights, including the right to fair trial and the rights of the LGBTQ community. For Hong Kong’s 7.5 million residents, the situation could become far worse if Beijing were to eliminate Hong Kong’s separate court system or transfer security-related cases to Mainland China.

Speaker’s Bio:
Carole J. Petersen is the Cades Foundation Professor in the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She taught law in Hong Kong from 1989 to 2006 and continues to research human rights in the territory. In 2023, she published: “Territorial Autonomy as a Tool of Conflict Resolution? Lessons from ‘One Country, Two Systems’ in Hong Kong,” in the ACADEMIA SINICA LAW JOURNAL, 2022 Special Issue 195-243. Professor Petersen holds a BA from the University of Chicago, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a Postgraduate Diploma in the Law of the People’s Republic of China from the University of Hong Kong. 

The views expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect East-West Center policies or positions.

The China Seminar was founded by Dr. Daniel W.Y. Kwok in 1977. Under his guidance, it became a signature program of the Friends of the East-West Center (FEWC) in 2009. The program provides an informal venue for China experts, such as scholars, diplomats, and journalists, to present talks on aspects of China that interest the community and members of the Friends. Topics include politics, economics, social issues, history, culture, food, arts, and many other subjects.

FEWC Annual Meeting

On By friendsofewcIn Uncategorized

Thursday, February 26, 2026
11:30 am – 1:30 pm
Pacific Club

Click Here to Register Online

You are cordially invited to the Friends of the East-West Center Annual Meeting featuring keynote speaker Deputy Consul General Hiroki Haruta of the Consulate General of Japan in Honolulu.

A brief meeting of our general membership will be held prior to the program to elect new members to the Friends of the East-West Center board of directors. The following nominees are:

  • Wera Panow-Loui
  • Robert Kay

Program:

  • 11:30 am – check-in
  • 11:45 am – Brief Business Meeting
  • 12:00 pm – Lunch
  • 12:30 pm – Program

February 2026 China Seminar

On By friendsofewcIn Uncategorized
China Seminar – Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Click Here to View Recording

Chop Fry Watch Learn:
Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food

featuring
Michelle T. King
Professor of History
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Speaker’s summary:
Fu Pei-mei (1931-2004), Taiwan’s beloved and pioneering postwar cookbook author and television celebrity, was often called the “Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” Fu appeared continuously on television for forty years, wrote dozens of best-selling Chinese cookbooks, owned a successful cooking school, and traveled the world teaching foreigners about Chinese food. Women in her generation, which included both housewives and career women, turned to Fu because she taught them how to cook an astounding range of unfamiliar Chinese regional dishes, in ways their own mothers and grandmothers never could. Her cookbook also represents the transpacific journeys of thousands of migrants, as they carried her recipes in their suitcases, traveling far from home. Fu’s story offers us a window onto not just food, but also family, gender roles, technology, media, foreign relations, and cultural identity. This is not a story of timeless culinary tradition, but one of modern transformation—of self and family, of cuisine and society.

Speaker’s Bio:
Michelle T. King is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she specializes in modern Chinese food and gender history. She is the author of Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food (W. W. Norton, 2024), which was named one of the best books of 2024 by the New York Times, National Public Radio, and Saveur. She is also co-editor of Modern Chinese Foodways (MIT Press, 2025), editor of Culinary Nationalism in Asia (Bloomsbury, 2019), and author of Between Birth and Death: Female Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century China (Stanford University Press, 2014).

The views expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect East-West Center policies or positions.

The China Seminar was founded by Dr. Daniel W.Y. Kwok in 1977. Under his guidance, it became a signature program of the Friends of the East-West Center (FEWC) in 2009. The program provides an informal venue for China experts, such as scholars, diplomats, and journalists, to present talks on aspects of China that interest the community and members of the Friends. Topics include politics, economics, social issues, history, culture, food, arts, and many other subjects.