Beijing… “The Enemies Made this Possible”: Sino-North Korean Relations after 1948 6 Jun 202023 Dec 2020 “’The Enemies Made This Possible’: Sino-North Korean relations since 1948” with Yujin Lim, in Adrian Buzo, ed., Routledge Handbook of Contemporary North Korea (London: Routledge, 2020), pp. 131-140. Abstract: This chapter is…
China… Mistranslating Mao in Chengdu, 1958 7 Jan 201918 Dec 2020 The question of Mao Zedong’s personal role in triggering massive famine in China during the Great Leap Forward (1958-61) brings us into an important debate. In recent years, big histories…
Beijing… New Fragments from Mao in the Cultural Revolution 10 Dec 2018 In December 2013, scholars of the history of the PRC were given a shot in the arm via the publication of Mao Zedong Nianpu, 1949-1976, consisting of six volumes of previously obscure…
American Foreign Policy… George H.W. Bush in Mao’s China 1 Dec 20181 Dec 2018 With the death of George H.W. Bush, it is an opportune time to look back at his time as the top U.S. diplomat in Beijing in the immediate aftermath…
Art… Walls as Multivalent Icons in Early People’s Republican Cartoons, 1946-1951 13 Apr 2018 The rise and ultimate victory of the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese civil war, and Mao's galvanizing intervention into the Korean War, was accompanied and supported by a wave…
American Foreign Policy… New Book Reviews: Espionage in Republican China, and Britain’s Role in the Korean War 30 Mar 201830 Mar 2018 My two new book reviews engage with the intelligence history of two chaotic decades in China, and the British role in the Korean War, respectively. Review of Panagiotis Dimitrakis, The…
Cold War History… Weaponizing the Past, or, How to Get a Book Contract in Trump’s America 14 Oct 2017 It seems a bit too easy these days to begin any essay with a nod to how disturbed one is by the latest muddy geyser of Presidential discourse. As most…
Borderlands… Questioned Liberators: Guerrilla, Mobile, and Base Warfare in Communist Military Operations in Manchuria, 1945-1947 11 Oct 201711 Oct 2017 The years from 1945-1947 were a complex transitional period in the development of Chinese Communist military, political, and diplomatic strategy. While not yet facing the dilemmas of transforming wholesale an…
Chinese foreign policy… Poking the Wasp Nest: Shen Zhihua’s Controversial Speech on North Korea 15 Jul 201715 Jul 2017 Why should we care about scholars in China, or the complaints they have toward North Korea? Usually, readers take interest in Chinese scholarly debates because something specific and enticing has…
Borderlands… Border Consolidation in Liaoning: From Chen Yun to Xi Jinping 6 Feb 2017 For presentation at Leiden University lecture series "Borders: Life on the Edge of Area Studies", 28 February 2017: For the Chinese Communist Party, the northeastern province of Liaoning today inhabits…
