2026-06-26 –, Room 201 (Seats 42)
Mountains occupy a distinctive geopolitical duality, existing as both natural borders and conceptually borderless topographies. Modern mountaineering, therefore, has served as an essential field of international encounter, where scientific ambition, national prestige, and diplomatic interests converge. While China shares the Himalayan frontier and possesses world-class climbing terrain, the nation’s extensive international mountaineering exchanges during the 1980s remain largely unexplored in the global mountaineering historiography and the history of international cooperation. To address this gap, this study examines how mountaineering was strategically mobilized as a field of transnational collaboration between Chinese and foreign actors during the "Reform and Opening-up" era. This study uses previously underexplored archives, including Chinese Mountaineering Association publications, regional Chinese gazetteers, internal reports of joint expeditions, and international climbing journals. By tracing legislative transformations, organizational processes, and the extended networks of joint expeditions, this study argues that joint mountaineering functioned as a political mechanism of international engagement during China’s transition toward global integration. Central to this narrative is the Sino-Japanese partnership, which facilitated a multi-layered exchange encompassing formal state-sponsored training, joint summits, and burgeoning civil-society interactions. By situating these collaborations within a global historical framework, this study explores whether the "alpine internationalism" of the 1980s offers a viable historical model for transborder dialogue in today’s increasingly fragmented geopolitical landscape.
collaborative mountaineering, mainland China, international exchange, climbing sports
Yaqi Wang is a PhD student in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta, where she studies the global history of modern climbing sports. Trained in anthropology at the University of Chicago, and in Spanish at Peking University, Yaqi brings an interdisciplinary and multilingual perspective to the study of world climbing history. Her research examines how mountains become sites of nationalism, globalization, gender politics, and environmental ethics. Beyond academia, Yaqi previously worked as a journalist in China, writing nonfiction stories focused on international events, climate change, and education.