On June 5-6, 2017, the Center for Law and Intellectual Property (CLIP) at Texas A&M University School of Law and the Confucius Institute and the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University jointly hosted the Chinese Internet Research Conference.
This annual conference was co-founded in May 2003 by Professor Peter Yu, who directs CLIP at the School of Law and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Communication. Since its inception, the conference has attracted scholars from a variety of academic disciplines, including journalism and communication, political science, law, sociology, psychology and education. Past participants have examined not only the impact of the internet on China but also China’s impact on the internet.
"It seems only yesterday when I was planning the inaugural conference with Professor Jack Qiu of the Chinese University of Hong Kong," said Yu. "The last time Texas A&M University hosted the event was a decade ago. So, I was naturally excited when the conference returned to our campus for its 15th anniversary celebration."
The theme of this year's conference was "Divergence and Convergence in China’s Internets." In addition to Professor Yu, the organizing committee included
Associate Dean Charlotte Ku of the School of Law and Professors
Randy Kluver and
Cara Wallis of the Department of Communication.
In the past 15 years, the conference has been held at leading research institutions from around the world, including Georgetown, Oxford, Peking, U.C. Berkeley, Penn and U.S.C. Annenberg. Texas A&M University and the University of Southern California remain the only two universities having the distinction of holding the conference twice.