China Study Group was formed in New York City in 1993 as a non-profit organization, and it is now a global group of scholars and activists concerned with carrying on the critical tradition of China-focused critique perhaps best exemplified in the past by William Hinton. The purpose of the CSG is to facilitate the networking of such people and to promote the dissemination of critical information and research works. It aims to provide alternative perspectives on and assessments of issues pertaining to China — both its revolutionary past and today’s China in the context of globalization. Members of the CSG support the broad goals of the Chinese revolution that triumphed in 1949. We seek to produce knowledge and stimulate debate regarding its achievements and limitations, as well as to offer a critical perspective on the radical changes that have occurred in China over the past 25 years and an ongoing analysis of its role in the world today.

To this end, since its founding the CSG has regularly organized public forums and conferences. These include panel discussions at the annual Socialists Scholars’ Conference in NYC, a two-day symposium on “The Cultural Revolution Revisited” (co-sponsored with Monthly Review) and a day-long conference on “Understanding China’s Revolution: A Celebration Of The Lifework of William Hinton” (also with Monthly Review and the East Asian Institute of Columbia University). More recently the CSG held a two-day conference on “The Fortieth Anniversary: Rethinking the Genealogy and Legacy of the Cultural Revolution” at the City University of Hong Kong in the summer of 2006, with co-sponsorship from Monthly Review and the Contemporary China Research Center of City U.

CSG also circulates manuscripts and papers it receives among its associates, with one published in book form as Manufacturing History: Sex, Lies and Random House’s Memoirs of Mao’s Physician. In addition to continuing all of these areas of work, CSG has decided to begin the dissemination of information and research works via the internet by starting our own website: www.chinastudygroup.net

In 2008, we launched an occasional journal, The China Left Review. This is a free, bilingual web-journal in the critical tradition of the CSG; more information is available here.

With the launching of this website, CSG seeks to promote information and research in major issues which are crucial for the current struggles over China’s future, and, in particular, those pertaining to the following interrelated areas:

• Understanding China’s revolution
• Today’s China in the context of globalization
• China’s looming social crises
• China labor study and support
• US-China relations

CSG remains convinced that by providing a forum for alternative perspectives, it will contribute to greater transparency and democracy, better understanding of China’s past and current developments, and moreover will help lend credence to the belief that another world is possible.

contact: [email protected]