On the morning of December 11, 2024, the Independent Lecture "The Transformation of Modern Neighborhood Relations and New China's Approach to Border Issues" organized by the Institute for International and Area Studies (IIAS) of Tsinghua University was held offline. The lecturer was Mr. Zhang Baijia, historian and former deputy director of the Party History Research Office of the CPC Central Committee. The lecture attracted doctoral students from the IIAS, as well as teachers and students from Beijing Foreign Studies University, Foreign Affairs College, Minzu University of China, and other universities.

At the beginning of the lecture, the lecturer started with two aspects of "the study of neighboring relations" and "the research status of China's border issues", and introduced the four basic elements and difficulties of neighboring studies, as well as the research status of border issues in the academic world, and said that China is the most complicated country with border issues among the countries in the world. He introduced the four basic aspects and difficulties of neighboring research, as well as the status of academic research on border issues. He said that China has the most complicated border issues among all countries worldwide.

The lecturer then summarized three aspects of China's historical boundaries and traditional peripheral relations, the modern frontier crisis and forced transformation of peripheral relations, and the frontier and border issues during the Republican period, and elaborated on the border situation faced by the new China, the initial policies implemented to cope with it, and the reasons for them. In addition, the basic principles of the Chinese government in solving the border problems and the process of solving the land border problems were also the focus of this lecture. Finally, the lecturer summarized the lessons learned from the settlement of territorial disputes and border issues.

During the interactive session, the speaker patiently answered many questions raised by the participants, including "How to evaluate the role of Track II Diplomacy in recent years in China-US relations", "How to collect first-hand data on cross-border ethnic studies" and so on. The lecture was successfully concluded in a warm atmosphere of discussion.

Zhang Baijia is a historian, mainly engaged in research on the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the history of Chinese diplomacy, and the history of China's reform and opening-up. He has served as deputy director of the Party History Research Office of the CPC Central Committee, member of the Legal Committee of the 11th NPC Standing Committee, executive vice-president of the Chinese Society for the Study of Figures in CPC History, member of the Academic Committee of the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and member of the Academic Committee of the China Foundation for International Strategic Studies, and has been a visiting professor or researcher at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University, and the East China Normal University. He has also served as a special professor or researcher at Beijing University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, and East China Normal University. Main works: "Change Yourself, Influence the World - Ruminations on the Basic Clues of China's Diplomacy in the 20th Century", "Traveling Through History, Analyzing the Changes in China and the U.S.-Current Thoughts on the Relationship between the Two Countries", "Revolution, Construction, Reform. Revolution, Construction, Reform", "The Chinese Communist Party: A Trilogy", "40 Years of Chinese Reform and Opening-up", etc.