The Fudan-UC Center on Contemporary China, the first joint centerbetween a Chinese and an American university, successfully launched its inauguralannual conference titled "China's Domestic Challenges" on March 25,2013. 

Scholars from Fudan and multiple campuses across UC presentedtheir work.  The conference attracted alarge number of professor and student attendees fromother universities, as well as community members from southern California.  Richard Madsen (Director of the Fudan-UCCenter) and Peter Cowhey (Dean of IR/PS) kicked off the conference with welcomingremarks on behalf of UC and a brief introduction to the history of thecenter. PENGXizhe (Director of Academic Council,Fudan-UC Center) welcomed everyone on behalf of Fudan University.

During the conference,scholars discussed the various critical challenges that China faces today inits path toward economic development and social change.  During the"Public Opinion and Popular Mobilization" session,O'briendiscusseshow Chinese seniorcitizens in Huashui townengage in politicalactivism;Pickowicz asserts that Chinesedocumentaryfilmmakers are taking on a new form of patriotism that calls fortrue patriots to confront difficult issues openly rather than covering them up. Huangaddresses the relationship between Chinese citizens' knowledge offoreign countries - advanced democracies in particular - and their evaluationof China;Chau discusses how twoinfluential publicfigures in the Chinese cyber-media - the pop culture icon/writer Han Han andthe artist-activist Ai Weiwei - define the relationship between themselves, themasses, and the state. 

China's energy issue wasalso a focal point at the conference. During the "Deregulationof China's Energy Market" panel,WU Libo reviewed some of the main ecological problems China faces todayin its path toward economic development, as well as the policy measures thatthe Chinese government has undertaken to foster ecologically sustainabledevelopment. 

During the "Labor Supply and Rural-Urban Migration in China"session, CHENG Yuan discusseslabor and migration byintroducing a new economic model to measure the rate of unemploymentin China in a reliable and cost-efficient way. Shiftinggears from employment to citizenship, ZHANG Li’s paperintroducesChina's new "point system," which is a new access system the Chinesegovernment has implemented with the goal of granting urban citizenship to selectmigrants. QianYang exploresChinese popular media representations of migrant workersduring the 1980s and 1990s.  She notesthatstories of female migrants became increasingly popular while stories centeringmale migrants had been largely absent. In the finalpresentation on this panel,HaiyiLiu explores Chinesewomen's out-migration to Western countries via marriage andpresents her five year ethnographic study of China-based matchmaking agencies that help middle-aged, divorcedwomen in China date Western men online.   

In the panel on health provisionand health security, Mei Zhan addresses why the conventional portrayal of patientsas the “weak” social group and medical professionals as its powerfulcounterpart is far too simplistic in China's changing medical landscape todaythrough her analysis of the hit Chinese medical TV-series “Angel Heart.”  Fei Wu presents her research on theeffectiveness of community recovery programs in drug users' recoveryoutcomes. 

In the evening program, Clayton Dubegives a speech to commemoratethe late Richard Baum,former professor of political science and director of the Center for ChineseStudies at UCLA, for his contribution as a China scholar, educator, and programbuilder.  PENG Xizhe, China's foremostdemographer, ends the conference with a keynotespeech that reviews the current trends and future challenges of China's growingpopulation.  According to Peng, China isat a demographic turning point: it is changing from an agricultural societyinto an urban society, from a young society to an old one, and from a societyattached to its land to one that is very much on the move.