As a small Chinese city on the Yalu River, Ji’an (集安) is an often-overlooked juncture for Chinese-North Korean movement of supplies and people. It was the main conduit for the Chinese troops into the DPRK during the initial stages of Mao’s intervention in the Korean War. It is the site of ancient tombs of the Koguryo kingdom, which makes it an important site for ancient … Continue reading On the Opening of the Ji’an-Manp’o Trade Port
In his seminal 1961 study of survivors of detention and interrogation in the new People’s Republic of China, Robert Jay Lifton explains why this topic gripped him so thoroughly: …I arrived in Hong Kong in late January, 1954. Just a few months before, I had taken part in the psychiatric evaluation of repatriated American prisoners of war during the exchange operations in Korea known as Big Switch … Continue reading Robert Jay Lifton, Revolutionary Immortality, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution
If you’re thinking much these days about Mao Zedong’s role in triggering massive famine in China during the Great Leap Forward (1958-61), you aren’t alone. In recent years, big histories in English have been published of the Great Leap by the historian Frank Dikotter and journalist Yang Jisheng, respectively, new sources compiled and translated by Zhou Xun, and excellent comparative monographs and edited volumes produced … Continue reading Mistranslating Mao in Chengdu, 1958
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 materials from the central party archives press (党文献出版社) in Beijing with respect to Mao Zedong. Links to some of my previous translation efforts in this text, mostly focusing on the early 1950s, are included at … Continue reading New Fragments from Mao in the Cultural Revolution
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 of Nixon’s 1972 groundbreaking visit to China. Although the period of Bush’s presidency (1989-1993) has yet to hit the Foreign Relations of the United States volumes, a large amount of open-source material has been made available … Continue reading George H.W. Bush in Mao’s China
Amid the welter of diplomatic moves that have occurred in and around the Korean peninsula in 2018, the two meetings in quick succession between the North Korean leader and China’s eternally-consolidating leader, Xi Jinping, have been one of the more curious elements. After a six-year hiatus from meeting foreign leaders at all, Kim’s mode of turning so suddenly back to China was indeed extraordinary. The … Continue reading Thunderclouds Over the Honeymoon: Xi, Kim, and the Trump Summit
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 Secret War for China: Espionage, Revolution and the Rise of Mao (London: I.B. Tauris, 2017). Forthcoming in War in History (submitted 10 March 2018) Panagiotis Dimitrakis has clearly had a lot of fun compiling this … Continue reading New Book Reviews: Espionage in Republican China, and Britain’s Role in the Korean War
