Studying China in the Absence of Access: Relearning a Lost Art

Andrew Mertha, George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies; Director, SAIS China Research Center, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

Recorded on February 4, 2025.

As our access to Chinese data sources becomes increasingly constrained, many China scholars outside China have been scrambling to find new and innovative ways to mitigate these trends. One promising avenue is dusting off the tools Sinologists utilized from the 1960s through the 1970s, when it was impossible to contemplate the access that many of us have been able to take for granted, but which allowed these scholars to get so many things about China right. What are these skills—the analytical tools and the strategies to deploy them—and how might we be able to adapt them to the current research climate (and the foreseeable future)? This is the subject of the SAIS China Research Center’s first publication, featuring four eminent Pekingologists – Joe Fewsmith, Tom Fingar, Alice Miller, and Fred Tiewes. Access here: https://scgrc.sais.jhu.edu/publications/

Andrew Mertha is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies, Director of the China Studies Program, and Director of the SAIS China Research Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). From 2019 to 2021, Mertha served as the Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs and International Research Cooperation at SAIS. He has held positions as formerly a professor of Government at Cornell University (2008-2018) and an assistant professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis (2001-2008). And a Michigan PhD! Mertha specializes in Chinese bureaucratic politics, political institutions, and the domestic and foreign policy process. Since 2009, he has extended his research interests to include Cambodia. He has articles appearing in The China Quarterly, Comparative Politics, International Organization, Issues & Studies, CrossCurrents, and Orbis. His fourth monograph is forthcoming in May from Cornell University Press – Bad Lieutenants: The Khmer Rouge, United Front, and Class Struggle, 1970–1997.