Last updated: 4 October 2026

The Institute for China Studies (“ICS”, “we”, “us” or “our”) uses cookies and similar technologies on the China Studies website to improve website functionality, understand how visitors use our website and enhance the overall user experience. This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are, how we use them and the choices available to you.

1. What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device when you visit a website. They allow a website to recognize your browser or device and retain certain information about your preferences or activities.

Cookies may help us understand how visitors interact with our website, remember preferences and improve the functionality and performance of our online services.

Cookies do not, by themselves, necessarily identify you personally. Depending on the type of cookie and the information collected, however, cookies may be considered personal data under applicable data protection legislation.

2. How we use cookies

We may use cookies and similar technologies for purposes including:

• Essential functionality — to enable the website and its core features to operate properly.
• Preferences — to remember settings and choices you make when using the website.
• Analytics and performance — to understand how visitors use our website, including which pages are visited and how users navigate the site.
• Website improvement — to identify areas where we can improve the content, functionality, performance and user experience of the website.
• Security — to help protect the website and its users against misuse and unauthorized activity.

Where analytics cookies are used, the information collected may be aggregated or otherwise analyzed to help us understand overall website usage. We do not use cookies to intentionally collect sensitive personal information.

3. Types of cookies we may use

Depending on the services and technologies implemented on our website, cookies may include:

Strictly necessary cookies
These cookies are required for the website to function and generally cannot be disabled through our cookie management tools.

Preference cookies
These cookies allow the website to remember choices such as language, display or other preferences.

Analytics cookies
These cookies help us understand how visitors use the website and measure website performance. They may be provided by third-party analytics services.

Third-party cookies
Certain features or services provided by third parties may place cookies on your device. These may include embedded content, analytics, video services, social media features or other third-party services.

The specific cookies used on the website may change as we introduce, remove or update services.

4. Your cookie choices

Where required by applicable law, we will ask for your consent before placing non-essential cookies on your device. You may choose which categories of cookies you wish to accept through our cookie settings.

You can also control or delete cookies through your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to block, delete or restrict cookies.

Please note that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality, performance or availability of some features of the website.

5. Withdrawing consent

If you have provided consent for non-essential cookies, you may withdraw or change your preferences at any time through the cookie settings available on our website.

You can also delete cookies already stored on your device through your browser settings. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.

6. Third-party services

Our website may use third-party services that employ cookies or similar technologies. These services may process information in accordance with their own privacy and cookie policies.

Where applicable, information about relevant third-party services and their cookies will be provided through our cookie consent mechanism or privacy documentation.

7. Changes to this Cookie Policy

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our website, the technologies we use, our practices or applicable legal requirements.

The latest version will be published on this page together with the date of the most recent update.

8. Contact

If you have questions about our use of cookies or this Cookie Policy, please contact:

Institute for China Studies
Email: info@china-studies.org

Important: I would recommend not retaining the original statement that “cookies do not collect any personal data”. That is too absolute for a modern website, because analytics, advertising, embedded services and similar technologies can potentially process information that qualifies as personal data under applicable privacy laws. The revised wording is safer and more accurate.