In my capacity as editor of The China Quarterly, I spoke with the Wall Street Journal about the wide ranging challenges facing Western scholars in conducting research on China.

I was recently interviewed by the BBC for an article on the recent crackdown on LGBT groups in China.

I did a live TV interview on BBC’s Asia Business report to talk about the ‘pink economy’ in China and address some of the misconceptions about LGBTQ+ affluence worldwide. A clip of the video can be viewed here.

I was recently interviewed for an story on the protests against the zero-covid policy China. The article is available on the Weekendavisen’s website (https://www.weekendavisen.dk/2022-48/samfund/partiets-raedselsfulde-aar) in Danish and behind a paywall. Here is a excerpt of the piece translated into English.

The party’s terrible year. The protests are just the latest in a series of mishaps to befall the regime during 2022. But it has spent decades preparing for just this kind of crisis.

By Peter Harmsen

"China's former president Jiang Zemin is dead, and the timing couldn't be worse. The announcement that he has passed away at the age of 96 has come towards the end of a year that for the Communist Party has in many ways developed into an annus horribilis – a horrifying one of its kind….

…One year haunts many comments from recent days: 1989. Several observers have drawn a parallel with the situation at the time, which ended with the bloody crackdown on protests in and around Tiananmen Square, with a large and unknown number of people killed follow.

The news of former President Jiang Zemin's death has only fueled the comparisons. Back then 33 years ago, the protests were also initially triggered by a death.

Hu Yaobang, a popular reform politician, died of a heart attack and tens of thousands of mourners gathered in the heart of Beijing. Later it turned into protests against, among other things, corruption, and eventually turned into an open challenge to the Communist Party's monopoly of power.

It's not that strange, and basically not unique either. Grief can do something in terms of mobilizing the masses, according to Timothy Hildebrandt, who researches social movements in China and other countries at the London School of Economics.

"Grief seems to be a very common starting point for lots of different protests. It allows people to come together and express their feelings. But there is something about human emotions that you cannot always predict how they will manifest,' he says.

He points not only to China in 1989, but also to the reaction to the death of George Floyd in the American cities two years ago as an obvious parallel, where grief quickly turned to anger, and the result was mass protests.”….

A co-authored article based upon ongoing research into civic participation in China has been published by the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs. This research was previewed in a post on the MonkeyCage blog of the Washington Post in 2020.

A co-authored article based upon on going research into civic participation in China has been published by the journal Democratization.

I am honoured and excited to have been named to Out Leadership’s research advisory council with six other of the world’s foremost experts and academics on LGBTQ+ inclusion, economics and workplace equity. Out Leadership, the oldest and largest coalition of global companies working to improve LGBTQ+ equality in the world.

With collaborators Yiu-tung Suen (Chinese University Hong Kong) and Randolph Chun Ho Chan (University of Hong Kong), my PhD student Eliz Wong has published an incredibly timely and important paper in Psychiatry Research; a pre-proofed version can be freely accessed by all on the journal’s website. The research examines the effects of general and sexual minority-specific Covid-19-related stressors on the mental health of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Hong Kong. I’m so proud of Eliz’s continued commitment to problem-driven and policy-relevant research in service of some of the most vulnerable in Hong Kong society. Read more about Eliz’s ongoing, and past, research on her website.

My colleagues and I drew upon our timely nationwide survey of Chinese citizens to understand how they evaluate the government’s ability to address the Covid-19 crisis. Not everyone in China thought the government could handle the coronavirus, The Washington Post, Monkey Cage Blog, 17 Apr

I was interviewed by BBC News for a wide ranging piece on LGBT people in China. I reflect on how businesses are catering more to LGBT people (chasing the ‘pink yuan’) and speak about the recent media reports of growing support for same-sex marriage in the country.

My PhD student Eliz Wong’s recent collaborative research on changing attitudes towards anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people in Hong Kong was featured in a front page article in the South China Morning Post.

Read more about Eliz’s past and current research on her website.

I was interviewed by the BBC’s World Business Report today on the social policy implications for China’s record low birthrate. Listen on BBC’s website.

My past research was cited and I was interviewed by NBC News in their coverage of same-sex marriage in China.

Following on from our recently published article at BMJ Open, in this piece my coauthors and I examine the role of sexual stigma in shaping public attitudes toward government-funded PrEP—and more broadly, we explore how they relate to government and media narratives of responsibilisation in times of cost-cutting under austerity. This article is also open access, and available for all to read!

As School Year Abroad celebrates its 25th anniversary of their first China program, I reflected on what it was like to be part of that first group of high schoolers in SYA’s Story Central.

I was interviewed for an article on LGBT people in China by the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen. The article, featured in the 18 October issue, is entitled ‘Den lange vej ud af skabet [The long march out of the closet]’. While accessible via its website, it is only in Danish and behind a paywall. Excerpts of a translated version appears below:

Under the radar. Gay Chinese are in a difficult limbo: Their sexuality is tacitly accepted by the authorities, but the rulers' fear of an active civil society is forcing LGBT groups to take caution. There is no prospect of pride in Beijing's streets right now.

By Peter Harmsen

…the LGBT movement reports a gradual tightening of conditions. It is not primarily about official homophobia, but about a more general aversion to an active civil society, especially if it finds inspiration and support abroad. Chinese NGOs are no longer allowed to receive money from foreign donors, and this can be felt….

…But according to Timothy Hildebrandt, a China expert at the London School of Economics focusing on LGBT groups, a renaissance for conservative values in China should also not be ignored. This does not mean a return to Marx, but further back - to Kongfuze and the notions of the family as the primary community stabilizing entity.

“Over the past couple of years, I have become much more pessimistic about the state's position to legislate in favor of sexual minorities. It is part of a feverish campaign designed to find legitimacy for state power elsewhere than in economic growth, even if it is about seeking back to so-called conservative values, ”says Hildebrandt….

….“For Taiwan, the legalization of gay marriage was certainly seen as an opportunity to make its name known as a leader in human rights in the region. I'm not saying that was the primary reason Taiwan took that step, but it's probably been seen as an added bonus, "says Hildebrandt of the London School of Economics.

“But it also meant a reduced likelihood that something similar would happen in China. If I were to place myself in the shoes of Chinese makers, then I wouldn't do anything that made it look like I was following Taiwan's example. ”

My research with Leticia Bode and Jessica Ng is now out in BMJ Open—the article is open access for all to read and share. In this article, by comparing support for government-funded preventive treatments for HIV, HPV and type 2 diabetes, we assess whether public attitudes on healthcare spending are broadly sensitive to ‘lifestyle stigmas’. Stay tuned for more work from this project!

At the 9th annual LSE China Conference on 13 August 2019, I’m giving a talk on ‘Measuring and making the good citizen: social credit scores in China’. More details about the conference can be found on LSE’s website.

This talk coincides with the launch of my new course at the LSE-PKU Summer School that runs from 5-16 August. Read more about the course—applications close very soon, but there’s still time!