The East Asian Institute has established the Goh Keng Swee Professorship in China Studies with the generous support of donors, which was officially launched on 16 April 2025.
We welcome further donations to the Professorship under the EAI Goh Keng Swee Programme so that it can be sufficiently endowed, enabling the EAI to attract China experts from top universities in the world to spend a few years with the EAI. There will be knowledge transfer, enabling the EAI to develop and maintain a network of relationships with and through the experts, and to develop and retain promising young researchers, especially in Singapore, who would be attracted to work with, and learn from, renowned experts. These experts will contribute to policy discussions on China through engagements with the policy, diplomatic and business community in Singapore, among other things.
The Goh Keng Swee Professorship in China Studies aims to attract distinguished scholars with an established academic record and an international reputation in the study of China’s economic, social, and political developments. It honours Dr Goh Keng Swee (1918–2010), founder of the East Asian Institute and Singapore’s former Deputy Prime Minister. A key architect of Singapore’s economic success, Dr Goh played a pivotal role in shaping the nation’s financial and economic frameworks. His vision for rigorous, policy-relevant research remains integral to EAI’s mission.
About the Goh Keng Swee Professorship in China Studies
This prestigious professorship will be offered on a rotating basis to distinguished scholars, who will be hosted at the EAI for up to three years.
Among the duties of the Professor would be the delivery of the Goh Keng Swee lecture for the year of appointment, past speakers for which include Singapore’s former Minister for Foreign Affairs George Yeo. The Goh Keng Swee Professorship would be funded from an endowment under the NUS Statutes, which would produce annual reports for the EAI Board. Donors would be invited to the Goh Keng Swee Lecture and key EAI events, and would be acknowledged on the EAI’s website and in invitations for the Goh Keng Swee Lecture.
How to Donate
You may pledge a one-off or recuring donation via the NUS Giving Portal (Apple/Google Pay, Credit/Debit Card and PayNow).
For donations of more than $100,000, please contact EAI Senior Associate Director Yuen Sin (yuensin@nus.edu.sg) and Senior Manager James Tan (eaitanj@nus.edu.sg) for a donation gift form.
For Singapore tax residents (personal/corporate), your gift to NUS is eligible for a tax deduction that is 2.5 times the gift value.
For further enquiries about the Professorship, please contact Yuen Sin at yuensin@nus.edu.sg.
The Inaugural Goh Keng Swee Professor
Prof Jean Oi, the William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics in the department of political science and a Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, will be the EAI’s inaugural Goh Keng Swee Professor in China Studies from September 2025.
Prof Oi’s work focuses on comparative politics, with special expertise on China’s political economy and institutions in the process of reform. Fiscal politics and central-local relations in China are at the centre of Prof Oi’s research. Recent work delves inside local-level institutions by exploring how county governments through adaptive governance have been able to cope as the economy has grown exponentially and demands and needs from an increasingly complex society put more strains on resources and the political system.
Most recently, she co-edited a volume that highlights the challenges China now faces after reaping record breaking growth the last 40 years. Current projects focus on growing local government debt in China and why there is so much when law prohibits localities from borrowing and budget deficits. Moving beyond her earlier work, Prof Oi also has begun a project to empirically assess the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Prof Oi takes an institutional and micro-level approach to identify the key players and their interests.
