Andrew B. Liu, associate professor of history at Villanova University and author of “Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India” (Yale University Press, 2020), gave inaugural China lecture hosted by UC Santa Barbara’s East Asia in May 2023. Liu’s talk, “End of an Era? China's Changing Place in the World Market,” explored current U.S.-China hostilities framed within the Asian country’s transformation in recent decades from a developing socialist nation to a capitalist superpower. “Liu is a leading global and comparative scholar of the history of capitalism and imperialism” said Jia-Ching Chen, UCSB assistant professor in the Department of Global Studies and an expert on China’s role in shaping the global green economy. “As conflict leads to polarization and reductive ways of seeing national interests, Liu’s expertise allows us to better understand what has come to shape China’s political economy, domestically and internationally.” The event was supported by the China Understanding and Peace Fund.