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).

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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.

China & Taiwan: A Third Way?

featuring
Brig. Gen. David R. Stilwell 
Former Assistant Secretary of State
Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs

Speaker’s summary:
While many news reports focus on the likelihood of a direct military conflict between China and Taiwan, Beijing has several other avenues to convince or coerce the Taiwanese to accept a version of “one country, two systems” governance. Taiwan’s economy remains deeply integrated with Mainland China’s and is thus vulnerable to disruption Chinese blockades or embargoes could bring Taiwan’s economy to a standstill. Meanwhile, there is growing weariness among the Taiwanese with the constant threats of violent disruption to their largely comfortable lives, and Beijing’s continued disinformation campaigns to deepen that sense of hopelessness.

Speaker’s Bio:
David R. Stilwell is the former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Secretary, David R. Stilwell served as the Director of the China Strategic Focus Group at US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawai‘i. He served in the Air Force for 35 years, retiring in 2015 as a Brigadier General then serving as the Asia advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He served multiple tours of duty in Japan and Korea as a linguist, fighter pilot, and Commander, and as the Defense Attaché at the US Embassy in China. He was an East-West Center grantee while studying for his Master’s Degree in Asian studies and Chinese language at the University of Hawai‘i. He was an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center from 2016 to 2019 and recently served on the East-West Center Board of Governors from 2021-2024.

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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.

China’s Ambitions in Space

featuring
Ling Xin
Science Reporter
South China Morning Post

Speaker’s summary:
This talk will focus on how space programs are organized in China and how its approach differs from NASA’s. It will trace China’s rapid progress — from low Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars — and what the next five to ten years may hold. The speaker will also examine the growing pains of China’s emerging commercial space sector, and the challenges and opportunities for international collaboration as the country positions itself as a major space power.

Speaker’s Bio:
Ling Xin is a science reporter with the South China Morning Post. Based in Ohio, she mainly covers physics, astronomy, space, and US-China science policy. Her work has also appeared in Science, Nature, Scientific American, MIT Technology Review, and other publications. She has been invited to speak about China’s space program on Science Friday, France 24, and at the International Mars Society convention.

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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.