HKU Faculty of Arts — Fall 2026 Lecture Series
Title: The Rise and Fall of the Rules-Based Interstate Order: Lessons from the Springs-and-Autumns China
Speaker: Prof. Yuri Pines, Chair Professor of the Chang Jiang Scholars Program in the Renmin University of China and Michael W. Lipson Professor of Chinese Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Date: 6 October 2026 (Tuesday)
Time: 10:00am (HKT)
Venue: Room 4.36, 4/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Language: English
Delivery Mode: In-Person only
No registration required, walk-ins welcome
Abstract:
China witnessed numerous periods of political fragmentation but those were invariably considered aberrations destined to end with the renewed unification of All-under-Heaven. Only once—during the Springs-and-Autumns (Chunqiu, 770-453 BCE) period—the multistate system was considered a normal state of affairs, and efforts were invested to make it fully functional. In my talk I shall explore how contemporary statesmen tried to replace interstate anarchy with the rules-based order, and why the experiments with unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar worlds all failed, leading to the war of all against all. What lessons can modern IR scholars glean from this failure to create a viable multistate system? Why did the attempts to ensure coexistence of competing states fail? And what was the long-term impact of this failure on China’s subsequent historical trajectory?
Biography:
Yuri Pines 尤銳 is Chair Professor of the Chang Jiang Scholars Program in the Renmin University of China and Michael W. Lipson Professor of Chinese Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on early Chinese political thought, traditional Chinese political culture, early Chinese historiography, history of preimperial (pre-221 BCE) China, and comparative studies of imperial formations worldwide. He published nine monographs, including China’s Aristocratic Age: Politics and Power in the Springs-and-Autumns Period (Princeton, 2026) and The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy (Princeton, 2012), and edited and co-edited eight volumes, including The Limits of Universal Rule: Eurasian Empires Compared (Cambridge, 2021).
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Enquiries: artscomm@hku.hk
