Professor Steve Tsang conferred as Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
Professor Steve Tsang, Director of the SOAS China Institute, has been conferred a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Steve Tsang is a political scientist and historian of modern China. His research areas cover the politics, international relations and modern history of the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
He is the author of five books, the editor of 13 collaborative volumes, and a regular contributor to public debates on China particularly in the media. He is known for his work on Hong Kong, Taiwan’s security and the ‘consultative Leninist’ analytical framework for understanding China’s post-Mao political system.
He is currently completing a project ‘The Political Thought of Xi Jinping’ with Olivia Cheung, which will be published by Oxford University Press next year. Earlier in the year he led and coordinated a consortium ‘DWARC’ which won a major Horizon grant (€4 million) on Dealing with a Resurgent China. But he and the SOAS Team have to stand down as a result of the UK and the EU failing to reach an agreement on Horizon. He will start a new research project, supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation of the USA, on ‘China’s Global Strategy under Xi Jinping’ this coming December.
At SOAS he holds the Chair in China Studies and directs the China Institute. He was also the Coordinator for the submission of the REF Area Studies unit.
Outside of SOAS, he is an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College and an Associate Fellow of the Chatham House. He has also testified at parliamentary committees in the UK and Canada. He was educated at the University of Hong Kong and at St Antony’s College at Oxford, where he received his D.Phil.
In reaction to his appointment, Professor Tsang said:
“I am honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences as I have dedicated myself to promote interdisciplinary understanding of China, both inside academia and beyond. This is a vote of confidence in the work of the SOAS China Institute, both in the promotion of scholarly insights on China and in sharing them with the wider community.”
As a Fellow, Steve joins a community of distinguished individuals from academic, public, private and third sectors, across the full spectrum of the social sciences.
New Fellows are conferred following independent and robust peer review by the Academy’s Nominations Committee. They are selected on the basis of the substantial contributions they have made to policy and practice, and for going above and beyond the normal requirements of their roles.
About the Academy of Social Sciences
The Academy of Social Sciences is the national academy of academics, practitioners and learned societies in the social sciences. The sector’s leading independent voice in the UK, we champion the vital role social sciences play in education, governments and business.
