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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利

@lchen2024.bsky.social

2.1K followers 500 following 120 posts

JD/PhD, UToronto historian of post-1500 Chinese law/politics/culture/intl relations; law & empire & postcolonial studies. Author of "Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes: Sovereignty, Justice, and Transcultural Politics”.

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Nov 16

Pleased to share a Chinese anthology of my research articles that will be published this month. With 14 chapters, it includes most of my research articles over the last fifteen years outside the monographs. It took 4 years for retranslating/editing/revising/proofreading. More info. at t.cn/A6n3tcDh

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · May 13

This will be a terrific opportunity for early-career scholars of legal history, particularly those working on non-Western legal cultures.

Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · May 13

Want to be part of the ASLH Early Career Virtual Legal History Workshop in AY2025-26? Hosted by Dirk Hartog & Michelle McKinley. Here's the Call. Application deadline: June 30, 2025 #LegalHistory

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Apr 14

A gift article from NYT on China's suspending of rare earth exports. The nearly 2000 comments by readers are particularly worth reading :)
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/b...

China Halts Critical Rare Earth Exports as Trade War Intensifies (Gift Article)

Beijing has suspended exports of certain rare earth minerals and magnets that are crucial for the world’s car, semiconductor and aerospace industries.

www.nytimes.com

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Feb 9

Snowy Winter in Toronto!

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Jan 29

Happy Lunar New Year to you all! May this year of snake bring you happiness, good health, and success in all your endeavors.

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Jan 27

I meant to link a different NYT article instead of this one which has been shared last time. But here is the new NYT gift article.
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/u...

Trump Tests the Boundaries of the Presidency (Gift Article)

Even more than in his first term, President Trump has mounted a fundamental challenge to the norms and expectations of what a president can and should do.

www.nytimes.com

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Jan 20

A typo. Should be Han Zheng.

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Jan 17

An interesting followup. The Chinese government has agreed to send Vice President/Chairman Han Zhen to attend Trump’s inauguration ceremony—a gesture of goodwill and a "meet-in-the-middle" approach. Trump just had a seemingly positive phone conversations with Xi. It’s a wait-and-see situation now.

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Jan 9

For those interested, a virtual talk this Friday (in Chinese).

China Research in the Cloud 云里阅天下(中国研究) @yunliyuetianxia.bsky.social · Jan 9

A virtual talk in Chinese by Professor Li Chen, "Who are the Victims: Sentimental Politics, Injury Discourses and Revengeful Violence in International Politics," at 7:30-9:30 am, Jan. 10, Eastern Time). 北京1月10日晚8:30陈利老师线上讲座 “谁是受害者？国际关系中的情感政治、伤害话语和报复性暴力".
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jyQAkqmfbw...

1月10日晚8点半-陈利老师受邀参加洪范主题研讨：“谁是受害者？国际关系中的情感政治、伤害话语和报复性暴力”

[1月10日晚8点半] 陈利老师受邀参加洪范主题研讨：“谁是受害者？国际关系中的情感政治、伤害话语和报复性暴力”

mp.weixin.qq.com

Reposted by Li Chen多伦多大学陈利

Taisu Zhang @zhangtaisu.bsky.social · Dec 23

New paper posted to SSRN, a few more to come later this week. The primary claim in this one is that legality and authoritarianism can be politically and administratively synergistic. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Legality and Legitimacy in Authoritarian Regimes

Conventional legal and political theory tend to assume that authoritarian regimes have an inherently uneasy relationship with law: that strong legal systems fun

papers.ssrn.com

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 16

When I read the news, my first thought was: Isn’t this just another way of currying favor with Trump by gifting him $15 million? How is this any different from bribery? :)

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 14

A virtual conference: "In Search of Early Chinese Empires: The Dynamics between Excavated Manuscripts and Transmitted Texts"; Easter Time: (1) 7:30 pm, Dec. 20-- 4 am Dec. 21; (2) 7:30 pm, Dec. 21-- 4am Dec. 22, 2024
Zoom registration link:
notredame.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

12月20/21日国际学术会议：“寻找秦汉帝国：传世文献与出土文献的碰撞” (线下+线上）

12月20-21日秦汉历史国际学术会议：“寻找秦汉帝国：传世文献与出土文献的碰撞” （线下+线上）

mp.weixin.qq.com

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 12

Typo: "Given Trump's love of personal diplomacy."

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 12

The reason offered for rewarding their persistence is also interesting.

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 12

How dedicated were late imperial Chinese literati to the civil service exams? Many failed 10 times (about 30 years), but how old could they be? Even the emperors felt compelled to give honorary degrees if they failed again, say, in their late 80s, as seen in the 1852 request for a xiucai, aged 89.

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 9

Another NYT gift article, on another tactic China has borrowed from U.S. practices on int'l trade: ban on transshipment of exported products by foreign companies to a 3rd country (U.S.). The U.S.-China trade war may escalate quickly if Trump does go all in next year.
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/b...

China’s Critical Minerals Embargo Is Even Tougher Than Expected (Gift Article)

Beijing ordered companies around the world not to allow critical minerals mined in China to reach the U.S., while deepening its efforts to replace imports with domestic products.

www.nytimes.com

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 7

A chapter from the recently published Chinese anthology "Law, Knowledge, and Power in the Age of Empire," providing some critical reflections on the use and analysis of historical archives in the field of Chinese (legal) history. t.cn/A6mCvA2N

方法｜陈利：“隐形档案”与史料深挖四步法

最近二三十年间, 欧美的人文社会科学研究领域中形成了一个所谓“档案转向” (archival turn) 的学术潮流。

t.cn

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 6

One of my favorite books in the modern China field, not necessarily because we read chapters of her book manuscript in one of my first doctoral seminars at Columbia before it became an award-winning book :).

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 6

In the Qing period, these two-, three-, or even four-register page formats were used quite often in treatises on the Qing Code or forensic examinations (Xiyuan lu) due to their efficient and convenient allocation of the limited space, even in well-printed commercial editions for muyou & officials.

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 6

Pictures from the western end of "China proper" as famously noted by the Tang-era poet Wang Wei: "I urge you to drink another cup of wine/For beyond the Yang Pass, there will be no old friends."劝君跟进一杯酒/西出阳关无故人.The first one shows remains of the earliest (Qin-Han) Great Wall from over 2000 years ago.

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 4

Added you to Late Imperial China SP.

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 3

But the problem with ✘ may be precisely because it has too much political information, esp. all kinds of misinformation, as Trump and Musk like to call it :).

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 3

China has been surprisingly restrained in its responses to the many U.S. trade/high-tech bans and sanctions over the past eight years, possibly because the current PRC leadership does not want to add international crises to its already very serious economic woes at home.

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 3

This is what I warned about before: Other countries, once they gain their competitive advantages, can and will borrow the U.S. playbook to arbitrarily impose trade or high-tech restrictions, also claiming "national security/interest" or "dual-use" as the pretext.
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/w...

China Announces a Ban on Rare Minerals to the U.S.

The move comes a day after the Biden administration expanded curbs on the sale of advanced American technology to China.

www.nytimes.com

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Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 3

I should have mentioned this earlier (but was constrained by the word limit): these two registers include royal pets exclusively from the period of 1822–1850 (the Daoguang period).

Li Chen多伦多大学陈利 @lchen2024.bsky.social · Dec 3

This's a late 18th-century scroll painting of pets allegedly of the Qianlong emperor (Cf. www.burninghou.se/p/the-empero..., a link [email protected]). If the naming practice was true, Qianlong liked the Chinese character 狸 (wildcats/civets), but the names didn't sound more majestic or masculine.

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