On October 18, the 9th World Forum on China Studies opened at the Shanghai International Conference Center, where the winners of the Award for Outstanding Contributions to China Studies were announced. Chia-ying Yeh, director of the Research Institute of Chinese Classical Culture at Nankai University and an academician of the Royal Society of Canada, received the award.

In her speech, Chia-ying Yeh said that we are living in an era of great changes and traditional Chinese literary criticism can bring forth new life only if it seeks paths of transformation; This is an era of more frequent and closer exchanges between the east and the west, and this exchange, combination, and development of Chinese and Western cultures is significant. She recalled that when she was teaching at Harvard University, there was a couplet in a meeting room says “Civilization, old and new, each enlightening the other; minds of the east and west, are fundamentally the same”. 

In addition to Chia-ying Yeh, Michael Arthur Nathan Loewe, a British sinologist and professor emeritus at Cambridge University, and Joseph W. Esherick, professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, are among the laureates.

The World Forum on China Studies is co-sponsored by the State Council Information Office and the Shanghai Municipal Government and co-organized by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the Shanghai Municipal Government Information Office. The Award for Outstanding Contributions to China Studies was established in 2010, aiming to promote the development of overseas Chinese studies, pay tribute to scholars who have made major contributions to Chinese studies, carry forward outstanding achievements of Chinese studies around the world, and facilitate exchanges between Chinese studies at home and abroad, is currently the highest award for international Chinese studies.