China is the only country for which LSE's representation is explicitly managed by the External Relations| Division| (see LSE China|). This signifies how important China is to LSE. In 2006 at the launch celebration of the Confucius Institute for Business London|, Sir Howard Davies, the former LSE Director, said: 'At LSE there are more than 500 undergraduate and postgraduate students from mainland China and around 300 from the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong.' 800 Chinese students represent about 10 per cent of the total student body.
However, as a discipline-oriented institution, LSE doesn't focus on area studies, thus, China studies, as such, do not exist at LSE. Inspired by LSE's innovative interdisciplinary methodological lecture series 'Thinking like a social scientist|' CCPN has developed an approach that can be described as 'advanced studies on China'. We make a distinction between 'China studies' and the term 'Advanced studies on China' which describes discipline-based social scientific studies on China.
To study China in Comparative Perspective is to use China as a comparator contemporarily and historically, with other countries or regions in interdisciplinary, multiple engagements, across institutions, and transnational approaches for advancing general knowledge.
‘LSE and China' covers a wide range, from degree programs and courses on China, LSE experts, all kinds of teaching and research organizations, to academic activities and relations with China.