Shiping Tang | |
|---|---|
| 唐世平 | |
 Tang in 2022 | |
| Born | (1967-01-24)January 24, 1967 (age 58) Hunan, China |
| Alma mater | |
| Children | 1 son |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields |
|
| Institutions | Fudan University |
Philosophy career | |
| Era | 21st century |
| School | Scientific Realism |
Notable ideas | Social Evolution Paradigm |
Shiping Tang (born 24 January 1967) is a ChineseMolecular Biologist,[1][2] political scientist,political economist,computational social scientist, and philosopher ofsocial sciences.[3] He is the FudanDistinguished professor (2013–) & Dr. Seaker ChanChair Professor (2014–) atFudan University and also theCheung Kong Distinguished Professor (2016–) in theChinese Ministry of Education.[4] He is an editor ofInternational Relations (2021–),International Security (2021–),[5][6]Small Wars and Insurgencies (2019–),Chinese Journal of International Politics (2018–) andSecurity Studies (2015–), and was an editor ofInternational Studies Quarterly (2015–2020).[4]
In 1985, Tang received a BSc inPaleontology fromChina University of Geosciences, Wuhan. In 1988, he completed his MSc inMolecular biology at theUniversity of Science and Technology of China. In 1995, he received his PhD in Molecular Biology andGenetics from theWayne State University, Detroit, US.[4]
However, believing inscientific realism, Tang decided to apply his knowledge ofnatural sciences, especiallyevolution theory, tosocial sciences and received a Master's degree inInternational relations (IR) from theUniversity of California at Berkeley in 1999.[4] He is known for hismulti-disciplinary works on the Social Evolutionary Paradigm in IR.[7]
Between 1988 and 1990, Tang was a Research Scientist at Sino-America Biotech and Weko Biotech. Between 1995 and 1997, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, San Diego.[4]
Although Tang has focused his research on social sciences since 1997, he still publishes papers on biology.[1][2]
Tang was aResearch fellow (1999–2002) and thenSenior fellow (2002–2006) at Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies (IAPS),Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and a Senior Fellow (2006–2009) at Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS),Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. From 2002 to 2003, he was posted by CASS to a midlevel government position in northwestern China.[8] Since 2009, he has been a Professor at School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA), Fudan University.[4]
His forecasting of a decisive win forTsai Ing-wen in2020 Taiwanese presidential election was deleted from Fudan's website, hours after its release.[9]
Tang is the creator of the Social Evolutionary Paradigm (SEP), a social evolutionary theory. He is one of those rare IR theorists who tries to construct a grand theory not only for the discipline but also for human society as a whole.[10] American sociologistHoward E. Aldrich thinks the SEP goes beyond "generalizedDarwinism and moving toward adopting generalizedevolutionism".
In his 2013 bookThe Social Evolution of International Politics, Tang argues thathuman society has historically evolved from relatively benign relations inhunter-gatherer societies, tooffensive realism systems, then todefensive realism systems, and finally to a more institutionally rule-based international system.
According to Dutch political scientistHendrik Spruyt, unlike mostIR theories which arehistorical contingent, Tang's SEP theory istrans-historical. American political scientistRichard Ned Lebow thinks Tang produced a non-determinist and non-reductionist approach tosocial evolution that is distinct from and critical ofevolutionary psychology.[11]
Tang further explained the SEP's theoretical underpinning in his 2020 bookOn Social Evolution. American political scientistRobert Jervis thinks Tang puts theevolutionary approach through its paces and shows how selection,variance, andinheritance operate to explain both macro and microSocial Developments. American political scientistPeter J. Katzenstein thinks Tang succeeded in developing and defending the claim that "evolutionism triumphs over all other explanations of the natural and thesocial world."[12]
In a 2016 article, Tang criticized a paper byQuamrul Ashraf andOded Galor which claimed thatgenetic diversity has a relationship witheconomic development. He thinks that Ashraf and Galor ignored the "Eurasia effect" and have some "econometric error".[13] Tang's rebuttal was endorsed by American statisticianAndrew Gelman in aWashington Post article. Gelman thinks "this new paper by Tang could be useful in that it criticizes Ashraf and Galor on their own terms."[14]
According to aStimson Center's article, Tang is the "only prominent Chinese scholar who publicly predicted a war between Russia and Ukraine" before May 2021, through a model of state behaviour he developed.[15][16] Back in 2009, after theRusso-Georgian War, Tang has already warned that Ukraine will be the next battleground.[17] He published an op-eds to call for a neutral Ukraine to prevent the conflict in 2014.[18]
Tang argues that Chinese political leaders should read1587, a Year of No Significance, a 1981 book byRay Huang, carefully to pre-empt failure ofbureaucratic system which leads to great policy failures like those happened in the mid-Ming dynasty.[19]
His another article sparked debate in China. He believes that Chinese people should read moreGlobal History and read lessancient Chinese political history. He even thinks that some researches aboutancient China, such asZhao Tingyang andYan Xuetong's works, are a waste ofpublic money. It is because the later are mostly aboutrules of man,power struggle anddynasty change, which shed little light on how to reform the contemporary society. He fears that if Chinese people are too obsessed with Chinese political history, it will leads to a sense ofparochialism among them too. He thinks Chinese people should learn from the experiences ofmodernisation of various counties, to better modernize China and have a say onglobal affairs.[20]
Tang argues that Norwegian social theoristJon Elster is one of the most over-rated scholars in 20th and 21st centuries. "Each of his books is casual and superficial, with little value", Tang wrote in an article onSouthern Weekly.[21]
His 2013 book,The Social Evolution of International Politics, received theInternational Studies Association (ISA) "Annual Best Book Award" in 2015. He was the first Chinese and Asian scholar to receive this prestigious award.[22][23]
