24 September 2014, 1-2pm
The Kanaris Theatre
Manchester Museum
Dr. Jenny Clegg
Free to attend and there is no need to book.

Dr. Jenny Clegg is a Senior Lecturer at the University for Central Lancashire and her specialist research mainly focuses on China’s development and it’s implications for the world order.

2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War One, a war which significantly reshaped the world in the 20th century. China’s involvement, and the profound impact this was to have in the subsequent unfolding of its history of revolution and war, is one, however, that receives little attention in the West.

This lecture aims to explore this wartime encounter between China and the West, focusing on the much neglected part played by Chinese Labour Corps at the Western front. Recruited by the British and French Armies to help alleviate acute shortages in manpower, this workforce numbered some 140,000 men by the time of the Armistice of 1918. What were the circumstances which brought these workers to France? And what of their experiences in a foreign land and the knowledge of the West that they brought back when they were repatriated? What influences did these have in the shaping of China’s emerging national consciousness, and its search for a distinctive modernity?

This event is organised by the University of Manchester Confucius Institute