The China Knowledge Network (CKN) strengthens the Dutch knowledge ecosystem on China in support of government policy. Since 2021, the network has connected more than two hundred Netherlands-based China experts and enabled inter-ministerial cooperation across all government departments.
Project description
The China Knowledge Network (CKN) was established in 2021 to enhance knowledge, expertise, and awareness on China within the Dutch government. The network supports policymaking by linking diverse academic disciplines and policy domains, enabling a deeper understanding of China’s motives, policies, and strategic vision.
CKN is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and operates under the Special Envoy for Knowledge on China. All Dutch ministries participate in the network and jointly determine its program of work. More than two hundred academics and experts working on China and based in the Netherlands are active members. Its international non-member community is also expanding rapidly, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the complex challenges in Sino-Dutch relations.
The network is jointly managed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, and the Leiden Asia Centre.
Cosmolab
Cosmolab is a video series that explores how we develop knowledge and awareness of the complexity of our relations with China. The series challenges naive realism—the assumption that reality can be fully understood through fixed, objective categories—by presenting alternative perspectives on how we perceive and interpret the world.
Through a sequence of conversations, Cosmolab approaches reality as fundamentally relational, in which knowledge and interpretation are inseparable from the realities they seek to explain. In times of polycrisis and polyphony, the series encourages reflection on how reality itself is understood and negotiated.
All Cosmolab conversations are available on the China Knowledge Network website and on the China Knowledge Network YouTube channel.
