Ann Chih Lin’s first Chinese immersion experience took place in seventh grade. Born and raised in the U.S. to Chinese parents, Lin spent a pivotal year of junior high school in Taiwan. That experience transformed “Chinese” from an ethnic label into a living language and culture. Her academic research on policy implementation gave her a comparative lens through which to look at China’s modernization and development. Through years of leading graduate students on study tours in China, she helped students understand how Chinese policies serve as models – or cautionary tales – for other countries facing similar challenges.
Ian Shin, by contrast, was born in Hong Kong and immigrated with his family to California in 1993 ahead of the British handover. In the San Francisco Bay Area, while taking piano lessons, he was captivated by a book at his teacher’s house — The Coming Man, a collection of late-19th-century anti-Chinese cartoons — which first sparked his interest in the history of racism and migration. Combined with memories of colonial life in Hong Kong and the sense of displacement he felt growing up as part of a racial minority, that early influence led him to explore Chinese American life at the intersection of empire, migration, and race.
From personal journeys to shared leadership
Years later, those parallel journeys converged in Lin’s and Shin’s leadership of the University of Michigan’s Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies (LRCCS), where Lin now serves as director and Shin as associate director. Together they are reshaping the Center to reflect their belief that understanding China requires nuance, diversity, and lived experience as well as academic expertise.
Both scholars see themselves as slightly outside the “standard” China-studies archetypes. Lin describes her career as driven by an “obligation” to understand and explain China responsibly, given her position as a Chinese-American academic. “Given who I am and where I am in the university, I feel an obligation to help others get to know China—and to get it right,” she says.
Shin frames his own obligation differently: to situate Chinese Americans within a broader coalition of people of color in the U.S. and to challenge the notion that advancing only one’s own group will ensure safety or belonging. “Chinese Americans are part of a much larger conversation about racism in the United States,” he explains, “and we can’t just look after our own group and assume we’ll be safe.”
Research and teaching shaped by identity
That orientation informs both his teaching, which emphasizes the nuance and complexity of Chinese American stories, and his research, which explores how Americans have interpreted Chinese culture. Shin’s new book, Imperial Stewards: Chinese Art and the Making of America’s Pacific Century, explores how early 20th-century U.S. collectors built museums and narratives that cast America as the caretaker of Chinese culture—laying cultural groundwork for today’s “pivot to the Pacific.” He also recovers the forgotten roles of Chinese students in Michigan who helped those collectors translate and interpret their art.
Lin points to her seven years of advocacy for Chinese American scientists investigated by the U.S. government. What began as reviewing a draft letter for an engineering colleague addressing the government became a policy project about loyalty, immigration, law enforcement, and the vulnerabilities of Chinese scientists in an era of tense U.S.–China relations. Safeguarding American science, she argues, not only requires the protection of immigrant researchers but a commitment to the norm of “open science” whenever possible.
Both also use the classroom to push students beyond stereotypes. Lin’s policy courses start with “China on its own terms,” inviting students to analyze Chinese social and policy challenges in the context of similar issues faced by other nations — for example, looking at China’s transition toward a greener economy alongside how countries such as Mexico handle comparable development pressures — rather than defaulting to the U.S. as the automatic point of comparison.
Shin likewise works to complicate students’ initial assumptions about Chinese American history. For example, he moves beyond textbook accounts of Chinese workers on the transcontinental railroad to highlight return migration, transnational ties, and lesser-known episodes—such as the 19th-century Michigan publisher Wong Chin Foo who coined the term “Chinese-American”—showing how real Chinese American stories are far more nuanced and complex than a single narrative.
Securing the future of Chinese studies at U-M
Looking ahead, Lin and Shin are frank about the fragility of Chinese-studies infrastructure in the U.S. at a time when understanding China has never been more urgent. Universities are retrenching from area studies just as U.S.–China tensions risk discouraging language learning and student exchanges. Lin, who sees herself as a steward of Michigan’s 60-plus-year legacy of China scholarship, is particularly focused on rebuilding faculty strength in contemporary China. “We desperately need people who work on today’s China,” she stresses, noting that area-studies specializations are out of fashion even as demand for expertise grows. For her, the directorship is an opportunity to tell that story to the university, alumni, and donors and secure the hires and resources that will keep LRCCS a preeminent voice on China for decades to come.
Shin complements that vision with an emphasis on students. He wants Michigan to remain a welcoming place for its large cohort of Chinese and China-studies students, supporting their professional development and equipping them to do ambitious, nuanced work. Both scholars warn that without sustained investment—in faculty, students, and federal funding—the U.S. risks a downward spiral of poor policy decisions made on bad information about China.
They also see storytelling itself as a form of advocacy. Many alumni and donors, Lin notes, have no idea a China center with more than 60 years of history exists at Michigan. By sharing faculty and student stories, she hopes to spark support. Shin adds that Chinese-studies training at Michigan equips graduates with rigorous analytical and research skills that serve them well beyond academia. “There are many different ways to be Chinese,” he says, “and part of what I want to do is help students imagine identities beyond the narrow frames of class, gender, or filial piety.”
Finally, both offer advice to younger scholars navigating similar identities. Lin urges students to “lean into” their connections and access rather than fear accusations of bias—start from what you know, then push outward. Shin encourages curiosity about unexpected Chinese stories around the world and boldness in challenging accepted wisdom and advocating for oneself. “What you’re really saying when you advocate for yourself,” he tells students, “is ‘I dare to expect more from my community, my institutions, and my government.’”
Together, Ann Chih Lin and Ian Shin embody a vision of LRCCS that is both rooted and forward-looking: rooted in deep, sometimes personal engagement with China and Chinese American life, and forward-looking in its insistence on nuance, diversity, and the training of a new generation ready to interpret China on its own terms for a complex world.
