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Challenging conventional wisdom crediting domestic factors with shaping health institutions, this talk demonstrates how foreign organizations, government agencies, and grassroots activists collectively transformed China’s epidemic governance. Under pressure from international norms and donors (especially from the US and UK), Chinese officials selectively absorbed Western epidemiology and liberal practices such as community participation, human rights discourse, and NGO engagement to enhance China’s global standing. Rather than promoting political liberalization, these engagements enabled the state to build a professionalized yet stratified disease surveillance system that laid the groundwork for its COVID-19 responses. This hybrid system empowered certain groups such as urban gay men to gain state recognition and resources, while making other marginalized populations invisible. This talk corrects a core misconception—that liberal diffusion and authoritarian expansion are opposite—by revealing their mutual constitution in biomedical politics.

Yan Long is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a political and organizational sociologist whose research explores the interplay between globalization and authoritarian politics, with a focus on public health, civic action, and urban development. Her work has been published in leading journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Social Science & Medicine, earning her over ten national awards. She is currently investigating how digital technology shapes urban governance during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.