Abstract
As a so-called side-event of XVIII World Congress of Sociology, an international conference “China Day” was held in Yokohama at 15th of July, 2014. This was coorganized by Chinese Sociological Association, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Japan Sociological Society, and Japan-China Sociological Society. Main topic was “China's Reform and Social Transformation,” and there were three sub-topics, China's Reform and Social Governance, Social Transformation and Structural Change, and Social Transformation and Social Mobility. After a keynote speech on East Asian Sociology by Shujiro Yazawa, twelve Chinese sociologists presented their own researches. The problems of governance, inequality, population, urbanization, women, intergenerational difference, mobility in contemporary China were discussed.
In this conference, as a Japanese discussant, Toshikazu Shuto, suggested, largely discussed ‘public’ issues were sociologically analyzed and audience could easily understand both what the important issues were and what the tasks of Chinese sociology were. The problematic issues such as diversity, ethnicity and religion, however, were not mentioned deeply in this time, which also must be decisively important for Chinese society and sociology.
Nevertheless, we can evaluate this conference itself was successfully over, because Japanese and Chinese sociologists could collaborate and create a public space for sociological knowledge. A new combination of global level and local or regional level of East Asia will contribute to the transnational exchanges and cooperation. However, if Japanese sociologists could have chances to read their papers, and if there were many Japanese sociologists attending this conference, new transnational dialogues would be further activated. Going beyond the nationalistic or domestic frame of knowledge, which often turns easily to the alienation or exclusion of the others, is now required for sociology. Of course, this postulate is not really carried out with no sweat, so it goes without saying that this reality itself also should be investigated in sociological circles.
