In September 2023, the Catalogue of Disciplines of Graduate Education (2022) (later referred to as the Catalogue) was officially released, which is a major adjustment to the Catalogue of Disciplines for Degree Conferment and Talent Training, which was promulgated in 2011 and revised in 2018, in the context of the new era. According to this catalog, regional country studies entered the cross-disciplinary category and became a new first-level discipline. This addition of disciplines has attracted a great deal of attention in China's philosophy and social sciences circles, as it involves a large number of supporting disciplines, strong intersectionality, and great strategic significance, which is difficult to be compared with traditional humanities and social sciences disciplines. After the release of the Catalogue, the academic community has launched a wide range of discussions on the construction of regional country studies, and the alliance of talents training and discipline construction of regional country studies in colleges and universities has played a very important role in organizing interdisciplinary exchanges and dialogues, which has spawned a lot of consensus, but a lot of different points of view have surfaced. The author would like to go back to the Catalog itself and talk about some of his ideas on the construction of regional country studies on some issues.

　　First，The core of the construction of regional country studies is the cultivation of talents, which is clearly stated in the preface of the book “Discipline Construction and Theoretical Innovation of Regional Country Studies” edited by Prof. Liu Xincheng, Vice Chairman of the Thirteenth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, as well as in the articles or lectures of senior scholars, such as Prof. Qian Zuidan. However, it should be pointed out that we should not take for granted that the training of talents in regional country studies is only at the level of postgraduate education because regional country studies is listed in the Catalog with the words “postgraduate education”. As a matter of fact, the gate of regional country studies personnel training should be moved forward to the undergraduate stage, and corresponding deployment and arrangement should be carried out from the undergraduate stage. Take foreign language and literature as an example, just as in August 2023, Prof. Zhang Yunling in the Ministry of Education, country and regional research work secretariat and the university regional country study talent training and discipline construction alliance co-sponsored by the second national regional country study summer advanced training course proposed to “adjust the way of training in foreign language education, greatly increase the knowledge of language education language content, so that students from the country language learning to the language of the country. content in language education, allowing students to shift from country language learning to country studies, supporting undergraduates to minor in degrees, and cultivating multidisciplinary knowledge-based undergraduates.” “Multidisciplinary knowledge-based undergraduates” is the goal that should be achieved in the undergraduate stage of regional country studies talent cultivation.2023 The Fifth Annual Conference of the Alliance for Talent Cultivation and Discipline Construction of Regional Country Studies in Universities, which was held in October, set up a round-table debate session, inviting a number of renowned scholars to debate on the integrated design of the undergraduate and master's degree programs for the cultivation of talents in regional country studies, and most of the experts agreed to discuss the design. Most of the experts agree that the training of regional country studies talents needs to be designed in an integrated way at the stage of bachelor's and master's degree.

　　Second，The inclusion of regional country studies in the Catalog and the parenthetical notation “Degrees in Economics, Law, Literature, and History may be awarded” would lead one to assume that the supporting disciplines of regional country studies are the first-level disciplines under the four major disciplines of economics, law, literature, and history. This view is not entirely correct. From the perspective of the knowledge system, regional country studies not only involves all the humanities and social sciences, philosophy (philosophy under the second level of Marxist philosophy), education (first-level disciplines of pedagogy and international Chinese language education), military science (first-level disciplines of military thought and military history), science (first-level disciplines of geography) and so on are the support of the regional country studies disciplines, of which geography, Marxist philosophy or The significance of the former is self-evident for the first-level disciplines with the name of region/country, while the latter provides scientific methodology for the construction of disciplines and academic research of regional country studies.

　　Third，Regional country studies do two things to support the discipline. First, “stimulate”, regional country studies can stimulate the traditional regional and country studies to a higher level of transformation. May 2022, the Central Propaganda Department and the Ministry of Education jointly issued the “for 2035 high-quality development of philosophy and social sciences in colleges and universities action plan” clearly proposed to “strengthen and improve the country and regional studies”, but also to see that there is a need to “improve” in the traditional disciplinary sense of regional and country studies. It is also to see that there are problems that need to be “improved” in regional and country studies in the traditional disciplinary sense. For example, the traditional discipline of regional and country studies in the sense of Western centrism highlights the problems of the research path, there are shortcomings in the research perspective, there is a lack of information tools, research organization mode is single, the lack of dialogue between the regional research community, the field of research communities, as well as between the regional and field of research communities, the formation of a different closed academic circle and academic culture. The establishment of regional country studies is to change these status quo, improve the quality of research and strengthen the social service capacity. Prof. Han Dongyu, in his book “Other Experiences and Self-Practice of Regional Country Studies”, put forward the idea that regional country studies need to cultivate “walking historiography”, which is a reflection on the traditional discipline. Secondly, it is a “feeder”, and regional country studies have a very good feeder effect on the development of the supporting disciplines. For example, on the basis of the “local” knowledge and practice provided by regional country studies, international relations can generate more international relations theories with more universal explanatory significance, and Stephen Walter's theory of alliance is based on his in-depth research on the practice of alliance in the Middle East; moreover, the regional country studies can allow some new theories of other disciplines to be tested in different regions. In addition, regional country studies can allow some new theories of other disciplines to be tested in different regions, for example, several independent and local international relations theories constructed by Chinese international relations academics can gain more universal interpretive significance if they can be verified in different regions. In my opinion, regional country studies in the sense of the discipline of regional country studies is a transcendence of the traditional paradigm of regional country studies, which advocates the combination of “proximity”, “rationality” and “integration” of regional country studies. It advocates a regional country study with “proximity”, “rationality” and “integration”. Of course, after the establishment of regional country studies, regional and country studies in the sense of traditional disciplines such as international relations, world history, foreign languages and literatures will still exist, but regional and country studies in the sense of regional country studies will establish their own research values, research paths, research tools, and research modes, and will improve the individual quality of researchers through the enhancement of their individual qualities (e.g., the enhancement of cross-disciplinary knowledge, the enhancement of the awareness of overseas practice) and the development of interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral, and cross-border research paradigms. Interdisciplinary, interdepartmental and cross-border dialogues provide more possibilities for the construction of autonomous regional and country studies knowledge system, theoretical innovation and methodological innovation. In the future, two paradigms of regional and country studies and their clusters will coexist, but regional country studies should advocate a new paradigm.

　　Fourth，When the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council and the Ministry of Education issued the Catalogue, it was stated in the “Explanation” section that “except for cross-disciplinary disciplines, each first-level discipline grants degrees in accordance with its own disciplinary disciplines”, and after regional country studies, it was labeled as follows. Degrees may be awarded in economics, law, literature and history”. In accordance with the Catalog and its description, it is clear what kind of degree is awarded in regional country studies, i.e., a graduate degree in regional country studies is still awarded in one of the traditional disciplinary categories - economics, law, literature, and history. However, there are two fundamental problems: first, regional country studies has a typical cross-disciplinary characteristics, in one of the traditional disciplines granting regional country studies degree, can not reflect this cross-cutting nature; second, the traditional disciplines under the category of the first-level disciplines, such as foreign languages and literature under the five disciplines of the direction of the “country and regional studies”, “world history” under the “world history” under the “world history” under the “country and regional studies” under the first-level disciplines of the first-level disciplines. Secondly, is there a fundamental difference between graduate students trained by traditional disciplines, such as “Country and Regional Studies” under the five major disciplines of Foreign Languages and Literature, “Country History of the World's Regions” under World History, and graduate students trained by the first-level disciplines of Regional Country Studies? If there is a fundamental difference, then it is inappropriate to confer the same kind of degree; if there is no fundamental difference, then there is no need to set up regional country studies. As a matter of fact, the current domestic academic circles hold different views on what kind of degree should be awarded to the graduate students of regional country studies. Some scholars believe that the degree should be awarded according to the degree-granting tradition, that is, according to the disciplinary categories of the award of degrees, can be issued “cross-disciplinary” degree; there is also the view that in the award of “cross-disciplinary” degree at the same time, can be bracketed behind the form of notes ” Some scholars think that the degree of “regional country studies” should be issued directly, that is, according to the first-level disciplines, and even the relevant supporting disciplines can be noted at the end; and there are scholars who think that the degree of traditional disciplines should be issued in accordance with the Catalog. In the author's opinion, the degree should be issued in the form of “discipline + parenthetical remarks”, i.e. “cross-discipline (regional country studies)”, which not only follows the tradition of degree issuance, but also explains the nature of the discipline and the specific disciplines for talent cultivation, and also helps to better identify and exchange talents. This not only follows the tradition of awarding degrees, but also indicates the nature of the discipline and the specific disciplines on which the training of talents is based, and helps to better identify and exchange talents. It is worth noting that, in parallel with the “catalog” issued by the “Graduate Education Disciplines and Majors Catalog Management Measures”, which points out that “cross-disciplinary setup and management methods, secondary disciplines and professional fields set up for the record separately formulated”. This means that there is the possibility of adjusting the first level of cross-disciplinary degree granting categories, including regional country studies, in order to allow cross-disciplinary training of personnel to obtain the cross-disciplinary appearance that should have.

　　Fifthly，Regional country studies, which has been listed in the cross-disciplinary category of the Catalog, naturally needs a definition that can reflect the object and purpose of the discipline's research. In the regional country studies before the study, the domestic academic community on the regional country studies of the cognition of the majority of the nature of its political nature, reflecting a strong applied characteristics; into the study, the definition of the regional country studies spring up, mostly focusing on the emphasis on the construction of the extraterritorial knowledge system, reflecting a strong fundamental characteristics. Any one of these two tendencies cannot objectively reflect the connotation and characteristics of regional country studies. In the author's opinion, regional country studies can be defined as a discipline dedicated to the construction of an autonomous extraterritorial knowledge system, and based on which it provides intellectual and human resources support for China's foreign strategy. In this definition, two major tasks of regional country studies are clearly put forward: one is to construct an autonomous extraterritorial knowledge system, and the other is to provide support for China's foreign strategy, which takes into account both the basic and applied characteristics of regional country studies. Qiu Zhiping, former director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, pointed out in a written article on the theme of “China's regional and country studies: why, what, and how to do” that regional and country studies are a kind of “applied basic theoretical research”, which is a very apt definition of the nature of regional and country studies. The nature of this definition is very appropriate.

“Nano Science and Engineering”, from the name also have both basic and applied characteristics, in which, ‘science’ reflects the basic characteristics, ‘engineering’ and ‘technology’ are Science” reflects the basic characteristics, while ‘engineering’ and ‘technology’ reflect the application-oriented characteristics. Therefore, we can consider that cross-disciplines do not always have only application-oriented characteristics. One of the practical benefits of taking these two characteristics of regional country studies into account is that several supporting disciplines of regional country studies can find their own suitable position in the process of building the discipline system. For example, humanities disciplines, including history and foreign languages and literature, can play more roles in the construction of autonomous regional and country-specific knowledge systems; social sciences, including international relations and world economy, can provide more intellectual services for China's foreign strategies. That is to say, it is not necessary to demand that all supporting disciplines should go to the political advice, after all, there are some shortcomings and some strengths. Of course, in the above definition, it is also stated that the core task of regional country studies is to provide human resources for China's foreign strategy, i.e., the cultivation of talents has been put in a clearer position.

Author：

Chen Jie Professor and Director, Institute of Regional Country Studies, Sun Yat-sen University