Where is the conference being held?

The conference will take place in Aarhus, DNK.

What is the eligibility level for attendees?

The conference is designed for college-level participants.

What is the primary focus of the conference?

The conference focuses on reflections on CHN as a changing nation and its impact on the world.

The China Moment: Reflections on a Changing Nation and World (DCRN 5th Biennial Conference)

Name: The China Moment: Reflections on a Changing Nation and World (DCRN 5th Biennial Conference)
Start: 2026-11-27T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-11-27T00:00:00Z
Location: Aarhus

Nov 27–27, 2026Aarhus, DenmarkIn-person

Registration open

The China Moment: Reflections on a Changing Nation and World (DCRN 5th Biennial Conference) is a pivotal academic gathering focusing on the evolving landscape of CHN and its global implications. Hosted in Aarhus, DNK, this conference brings together scholars and researchers to delve into the multifaceted transformations occurring within CHN and their ripple effects across the international system. The event serves as a forum for critical analysis and discussion on CHN's domestic developments and its increasing influence on world affairs. This biennial conference is designed to foster a deeper understanding of CHN's trajectory, examining both internal dynamics and external engagements. Participants will explore how CHN's changes are reshaping geopolitical, economic, and social paradigms, offering diverse perspectives on what this "China Moment" signifies for the international community.

Committees & topics

Topics
Domestic Politics and Governance in Contemporary China · Society, Culture, and Demographic Change in China · Environment, Sustainability, and Climate Governance · Economic Transformation and Development · Technology, Digitalisation, and Innovation · Foreign Policy, Migration, and the Global Order · International Cooperation and Development · History, Religion, and Culture

Why it matters

The rise of CHN as a global power is arguably one of the most significant geopolitical shifts of the contemporary era. Its economic growth, technological advancements, and diplomatic initiatives have profound implications for international relations, trade, and global governance. Understanding this complex phenomenon requires rigorous academic inquiry and interdisciplinary dialogue, which this conference aims to facilitate.

For policymakers, businesses, and international organizations, comprehending CHN's internal policies and external strategies is crucial for effective engagement and strategic planning. The conference's focus on "Reflections on a Changing Nation and World" underscores the necessity of continuous analysis to adapt to the dynamic nature of CHN's role. This event provides a platform for generating insights that can inform more nuanced and effective approaches to CHN-related challenges and opportunities.

Furthermore, the conference's location in DNK highlights the European perspective on CHN's rise. European nations, including DNK, are navigating complex relationships with CHN, balancing economic cooperation with concerns over human rights, trade imbalances, and geopolitical competition. The discussions at this conference will contribute to a broader understanding of these intricate dynamics and potential pathways for engagement.

How to prepare

To effectively engage with the themes of this conference, participants should consider undertaking a "dynamic-analysis" of CHN's current political, economic, and social trends. This involves not only understanding historical contexts but also analyzing real-time developments and their potential future implications. A thorough review of recent policy documents, economic reports, and academic literature concerning CHN would be beneficial.

Given the diverse perspectives expected, it would be valuable to consider the concept of "hidden-stakeholders" in CHN's domestic and international policies. Identifying and understanding the motivations of various internal and external actors, beyond the most visible ones, can provide a more comprehensive picture of CHN's decision-making processes and global impact. This approach can be enhanced by applying principles from a "stakeholder-workshop" to map out key players and their interests.

Delegates might also prepare by examining different "engagement-strategies" that various countries and international bodies have employed in their interactions with CHN. Analyzing the successes and failures of these strategies can offer valuable lessons for future diplomatic and economic relations. Considering how "gender-dynamics-across-cultures" might influence CHN's domestic policies and international outreach could also provide a unique lens for analysis.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

China

A nation undergoing significant internal transformation and asserting increasing global influence.

Role in topic

The central subject of the conference, with discussions focusing on its domestic changes and international impact across various domains.

Denmark

Host nation providing a European perspective on CHN's evolving role.

Role in topic

As the host country, DNK facilitates the academic discourse, offering a European vantage point on CHN's global impact and bilateral relations.

United States

A major global power whose relationship with CHN is a key driver of international dynamics.

Role in topic

The evolving strategic competition and cooperation between USA and CHN will likely be a recurring theme, influencing discussions on global governance, trade, and security.

United Kingdom

A European nation with significant economic and diplomatic ties to CHN, navigating complex relations.

Role in topic

GBR's approach to CHN, particularly concerning trade, investment, and geopolitical issues, will offer a relevant case study for understanding European engagement with CHN.

Japan

A key East Asian neighbor with historical and contemporary strategic interests intertwined with CHN.

Role in topic

JPN's perspective on CHN's regional assertiveness, economic influence, and security concerns will be crucial for understanding East Asian dynamics.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Domestic Politics and Governance in Contemporary China

Since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, China has been governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under a one-party system, but the contours of that system have evolved dramatically. Deng Xiaoping's post-1978 reforms institutionalised collective leadership, term limits, and a degree of intra-party pluralism, while preserving the Party's monopoly on political power. Under Xi Jinping, who became General Secretary in 2012, governance has shifted toward greater centralisation: the 2018 constitutional amendment removed presidential term limits, an extensive anti-corruption campaign reshaped elite politics, and the Party has reasserted control over the state apparatus, the military, the private sector, and civil society. The core tensions in Chinese governance today involve balancing top-down political control with the technocratic flexibility that drove decades of growth. Recurrent debates surround the management of local government debt, the relationship between Beijing and provincial authorities, the handling of dissent in Hong Kong following the 2020 National Security Law, and the governance of Xinjiang and Tibet. The 20th Party Congress in 2022 confirmed Xi's third term and elevated loyalists, signalling a consolidation that observers argue may reduce policy feedback loops. Externally, China's domestic governance model — sometimes branded as 'whole-process people's democracy' — is increasingly presented as an alternative to liberal democracy. How Beijing manages succession, social grievances, and the legitimacy of one-party rule in a slowing economy will shape both China and the wider debate over political systems.

Key players

Society, Culture, and Demographic Change in China

China's social fabric has been reshaped by two generations of rapid urbanisation, marketisation, and the legacy of the one-child policy (1980–2015). Hundreds of millions have moved from rural villages to coastal megacities, producing a vast migrant-worker population whose access to public services has been constrained by the hukou household registration system. A growing middle class has driven new patterns of consumption, education, and lifestyle, while inequality between coastal and interior regions, and between urban and rural residents, remains substantial. Demographically, China crossed a historic threshold in 2022 when its population began to shrink, and India overtook it as the world's most populous country in 2023. Fertility has fallen well below replacement despite the shift to a three-child policy in 2021 and various pronatalist incentives. The working-age population is contracting, the over-60 cohort is projected to exceed 400 million by the mid-2030s, and youth unemployment has become a politically sensitive indicator. Cultural shifts — including the 'lying flat' (tangping) and 'let it rot' (bailan) phenomena — reflect anxieties about housing costs, work pressure, and social mobility. The state has responded with campaigns to promote 'common prosperity,' regulate the education and entertainment sectors, and revive traditional values, while also tightening controls on feminism, LGBTQ+ visibility, and online subcultures. The interplay between demographic decline, cultural change, and Party-led social management will define China's social trajectory.

Key players

Environment, Sustainability, and Climate Governance

China is simultaneously the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter and the largest investor in renewable energy. Decades of coal-fuelled industrial growth produced severe air, water, and soil pollution, prompting the 2013 'war on pollution' and a tightening of environmental regulation. In 2020, Xi Jinping announced that China would aim for peak carbon emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060 — the so-called '30/60' targets — which have since framed domestic energy and industrial policy. China now dominates global supply chains for solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and critical minerals processing, and is the largest deployer of renewables in absolute terms. Yet it also approved a surge in new coal-fired capacity after the 2021 power crunch, and its emissions trajectory remains contested. Domestically, environmental governance is challenged by local-government incentives, water scarcity in the north, and biodiversity loss; internationally, China plays a pivotal role in UNFCCC negotiations, the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (which it presided over in 2022), and debates over climate finance. Key questions include whether China will accept differentiated obligations as a 'developing country' under the UNFCCC, how its Belt and Road investments align with green commitments, and how Sino-American climate cooperation can survive broader strategic rivalry.

Key players

Economic Transformation and Development

China's economic rise since 1978 is among the most consequential transformations in modern history, lifting roughly 800 million people out of extreme poverty and turning the country into the world's second-largest economy and largest manufacturer. The reform-era model combined export-led growth, state-directed investment, financial repression, and a unique blend of market dynamism and state ownership. WTO accession in 2001 accelerated integration into global value chains, while the 2008 stimulus entrenched an investment- and debt-fuelled growth model. That model has reached its limits. The property sector, which once contributed roughly a quarter of GDP, has been in protracted distress since the 2021 Evergrande crisis. Local government financing vehicles carry heavy debt, demographic decline is shrinking the workforce, and total-factor productivity growth has slowed. Beijing is attempting a pivot toward 'new productive forces' — advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, EVs, batteries, and AI — supported by industrial policy under the 'Made in China 2025' and dual-circulation frameworks. The 'common prosperity' agenda has sought to rebalance income and rein in tech and tutoring sectors. Externally, China's industrial overcapacity and export surge have triggered tariffs and investigations by the US, EU, and others. The central debate is whether China can transition from an investment- and export-heavy model to one driven more by domestic consumption and innovation without a sharper slowdown, and how its choices reshape global trade.

Key players

Technology, Digitalisation, and Innovation

China has moved from being the world's assembly line to a frontier player in several digital and advanced-technology sectors. Domestic platforms such as Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and Huawei built one of the world's most extensive digital ecosystems, supported by mobile payments, e-commerce, and a vast data environment. State-led plans — including the New Generation AI Development Plan (2017), Made in China 2025, and successive Five-Year Plans — have prioritised semiconductors, AI, quantum, biotech, and aerospace as strategic sectors. Since 2018, US export controls on advanced chips, lithography equipment, and AI hardware — joined by the Netherlands, Japan, and others — have sought to slow China's access to leading-edge semiconductors. Beijing has responded with massive subsidies for indigenous fabrication, controls on critical-mineral exports (gallium, germanium, graphite), and a push for technological self-reliance. Domestically, the 2021 regulatory crackdown on platform companies, the Personal Information Protection Law, and rules on generative AI have created one of the world's most developed (and restrictive) digital governance regimes. The central questions are whether bifurcation of global tech stacks is becoming permanent, how Chinese AI models and standards will diffuse through the Global South, and how digital authoritarianism and digital sovereignty arguments will shape international rule-making in fora such as the ITU and the Global Digital Compact.

Key players

Foreign Policy, Migration, and the Global Order

China's foreign policy has shifted from Deng-era 'hide your strength, bide your time' to a more assertive posture associated with Xi Jinping's vision of 'great-power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.' Flagship initiatives — the Belt and Road Initiative (2013), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Global Development, Global Security, and Global Civilisation Initiatives — articulate an alternative vision of global order anchored in sovereignty, non-interference, and developmentalism. Beijing has expanded its diplomatic footprint, brokered the 2023 Saudi–Iran rapprochement, and deepened ties with the Global South, while maintaining a 'no-limits' partnership with Russia after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Regional flashpoints — the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, the Sino-Indian border, and tensions over the East China Sea — coexist with intensifying US–China strategic rivalry across trade, technology, and security. Migration dynamics are also shifting: Chinese outbound migration has diversified beyond traditional destinations, including significant flows to Southeast Asia, Africa, and, more recently, irregular migration through the Americas, while inbound migration remains limited and tightly controlled. The overarching question is whether the international system is moving toward a bipolar Sino-American order, a multipolar configuration with China as a leading pole, or a more fragmented landscape — and what role multilateral institutions will play in mediating that transition.

Key players

International Cooperation and Development

China has become one of the world's largest sources of development finance, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative, the China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China, and multilateral institutions it has shaped, including the AIIB and the New Development Bank. Chinese lending and contractors have built infrastructure across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and parts of Europe, often filling gaps left by Western donors. At the same time, concerns about debt sustainability — highlighted by cases such as Sri Lanka, Zambia, and Pakistan — have prompted debates over restructuring under the G20 Common Framework, in which China is now the largest official bilateral creditor to many low-income countries. Beijing increasingly frames its cooperation through the Global Development Initiative (2021), aligned rhetorically with the SDGs but distinct in its emphasis on sovereignty, non-conditionality, and South–South solidarity. It has expanded engagement in global health (vaccines, the WHO), climate finance, food security, and digital infrastructure ('Digital Silk Road'), while becoming a major player in UN peacekeeping contributions and in shaping standards within UN technical bodies. The debate centres on how Chinese development cooperation interacts with traditional OECD-DAC donors, whether new common standards for transparency and debt sustainability can be agreed, and how recipient countries can maximise leverage in a more pluralistic aid landscape.

Key players

History, Religion, and Culture

China's modern self-understanding is deeply shaped by what is officially termed the 'century of humiliation' (c. 1839–1949), running from the Opium Wars and unequal treaties through the fall of the Qing, the Republican era, Japanese invasion, and civil war. The People's Republic, founded in 1949, narrates national rejuvenation as the redress of that history, a framing central to current Party ideology and to the 'Chinese Dream.' Memory politics — over the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the 1989 Tiananmen events, wartime atrocities, and relations with Japan and the West — remain tightly managed. Religiously, China is officially atheist but recognises five religions: Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism, administered through state-sanctioned associations under the 'sinicisation of religion' policy intensified since 2015. Tensions have been most acute in Xinjiang, where mass internment of Uyghur Muslims since 2017 has drawn UN OHCHR scrutiny, and in Tibet, where the question of the Dalai Lama's succession looms. Relations with the Vatican over bishop appointments, and pressures on house churches and Falun Gong practitioners, also shape the religious landscape. Culturally, Beijing has invested heavily in soft power — Confucius Institutes, film and gaming exports, heritage diplomacy, and a revived emphasis on Confucian and traditional values — while tightening controls on domestic cultural production. The debates here concern how historical narratives, religious freedom, and cultural influence interact with China's international image and with the rights of minority communities at home.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for The China Moment: Reflections on a Changing Nation and World (DCRN 5th Biennial Conference).

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Rahul Gandhi Defends Tamil Nadu's Autonomy

India's 131st Amendment Bill

West Bengal 2026 Election

US Job Openings at 6.7M

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Dynamic Analysis

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Policy Brief Writing

Cross-Cultural Communication

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Denmark College November 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

The China Moment: Reflections on a Changing Nation and World (DCRN 5th Biennial Conference)

Nov 27–27, 2026Aarhus, DenmarkIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Domestic Politics and Governance in Contemporary China · Society, Culture, and Demographic Change in China · Environment, Sustainability, and Climate Governance · Economic Transformation and Development · Technology, Digitalisation, and Innovation · Foreign Policy, Migration, and the Global Order · International Cooperation and Development · History, Religion, and Culture

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

China

A nation undergoing significant internal transformation and asserting increasing global influence.

Role in topic

The central subject of the conference, with discussions focusing on its domestic changes and international impact across various domains.

Denmark

Host nation providing a European perspective on CHN's evolving role.

Role in topic

As the host country, DNK facilitates the academic discourse, offering a European vantage point on CHN's global impact and bilateral relations.

United States

A major global power whose relationship with CHN is a key driver of international dynamics.

Role in topic

The evolving strategic competition and cooperation between USA and CHN will likely be a recurring theme, influencing discussions on global governance, trade, and security.

United Kingdom

A European nation with significant economic and diplomatic ties to CHN, navigating complex relations.

Role in topic

GBR's approach to CHN, particularly concerning trade, investment, and geopolitical issues, will offer a relevant case study for understanding European engagement with CHN.

Japan

A key East Asian neighbor with historical and contemporary strategic interests intertwined with CHN.

Role in topic

JPN's perspective on CHN's regional assertiveness, economic influence, and security concerns will be crucial for understanding East Asian dynamics.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Domestic Politics and Governance in Contemporary China

Key players

Society, Culture, and Demographic Change in China

Key players

Environment, Sustainability, and Climate Governance

Key players

Economic Transformation and Development

Key players

Technology, Digitalisation, and Innovation

Key players

Foreign Policy, Migration, and the Global Order

Key players

International Cooperation and Development

Key players

History, Religion, and Culture

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for The China Moment: Reflections on a Changing Nation and World (DCRN 5th Biennial Conference).

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Rahul Gandhi Defends Tamil Nadu's Autonomy

India's 131st Amendment Bill

West Bengal 2026 Election

US Job Openings at 6.7M

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Dynamic Analysis

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Policy Brief Writing

Cross-Cultural Communication

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Denmark College November 2026

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

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V2 Security Copenhagen 2026

Copenhagen Democracy Summit 2026

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AARCON Summer Conference 2026: "Transitions: The Aftermath of War and Conflict"

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Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

Geopolitics & Business Security

V2 Security Copenhagen 2026

Copenhagen Democracy Summit 2026

VL Summit 2026

AARCON Summer Conference 2026: "Transitions: The Aftermath of War and Conflict"

International Conference on International Humanitarian Law and Armed Forces Regulations

Frequently asked questions