Global China Center, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

【RURAL COLLECTIVE CHINA AS AN ORGANIC ENERGY REGIME
Speaker: Jacob Eyferth, University of Chicago】

Moderator: David Cheng Chang, HKUST

Date: May 25 (Thursday)

Time: 16:00-17:30

Venue: Room 3401



Abstract:
The Maoist development model relied on labor mobilization in agriculture and infrastructure construction, and on non-equivalent exchange between the agricultural and industrial sectors. Throughout the Mao years, the countryside received few modern inputs. Most labor was performed by human and animal muscle rather than by machines. Most fertilizer was organic, laboriously collected and composted from human and animal excrement and other organic matter. Most heating in rural households came from crop residues or firewood collected in the hills. At the same time, the urban-industrial sector transitioned from an organic to a fossil-fuel energy regime, powered by coal and petrol. For about two decades, the government expected the rural-agrarian sector to expand at the same pace as the urban-industrial sector, despite the fact that the countryside had little access to output-boosting fossil fuels. This led, on the one hand, to a rural energy crisis, as the same limited resources of land and organic matter were needed to meet conflicting demands for fuel, fodder, compost, etc. and, on the other hand, to labor intensification at the household level, as women and children were mobilized to fill the gaps resulting from extraction.

Bio:
Jacob Eyferth is a social historian of China with research interests in the life and work experience of non-elite people throughout the twentieth century. Most of his work has focused on the countryside and on the mid-twentieth century, c. 1920-1970. His first book, Eating Rice from Bamboo Roots, is an ethnographic history of a community of rural papermakers in Sichuan. He is currently working on a second book, tentatively titled Cotton, Gender, and Revolution in Twentieth-Century China, that uses cloth and clothing as a lens through which to analyze how the monumental changes of the twentieth century – revolution, collectivization, industrialization, etc. – transformed the lives of rural women.

CGI AND “NATIONAL STYLE”: ZHANG YIMOU’S SHADOW


Speaker: Jason McGrath (University of Minnesota)

Time: 9am-10am, May 15 (Monday, Hong Kong time)

Format: Zoom

Abstract

In the history of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in China, as in the much longer history of animation more generally, we find competing and yet intertwined trends toward, on one hand, absorbing technological advances made abroad and “catching up” with the state of the art as determined by others and, on the other, seeking to use those technologies in the service of a distinctively Chinese aesthetic, or even to use the possibilities of animation—particularly its liberation from the limitations of photographic realism—to give new expressions to figures and narratives from Chinese tradition. This paper examines Zhang Yimou’s 2018 martial arts film Shadow (影) as a recent example of how a Chinese aesthetic tradition—in this case ink landscape painting—forms the intermedial inspiration for the film’s visual imagination. However, rather than straightforwardly serving as a soft-power assertion of China’s national strength, Shadow employs the symbolism of the “Supreme Ultimate” from Daoist philosophy to subtly challenge hegemonic military, political, and patriarchal structures of power.



Bio

Jason McGrath is Professor of modern Chinese cultural studies in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota, where he also serves on the graduate faculty in Moving Image, Media, and Sound Studies. His first book, Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in the Market Age examined how the post-1980s marketization trend transformed Chinese culture in the contemporary era. His second book, Chinese Film: Realism and Convention from the Silent Era to the Digital Age, traces the history of mainland Chinese fiction film through the various claims for cinematic realism made over a century of cinema in China, describing a historical dialectics of realism and convention in which realisms define themselves both through and in opposition to conventions of various sorts, whether those of indigenous Chinese drama, classical Hollywood cinema, melodrama, socialist realism, neorealism, or contemporary blockbuster cinema.

ANIMATION, COLLAGE, AND THE AFTERLIFE OF IMAGES: FOUND FOOTAGE IN/AS ANIMATION

Speaker: Yomi Braester (University of Washington in Seattle)

Time: 9:30-10:30am on May 10 (Wed, Hong Kong time),

Format: Zoom

Abstract:

In this essay I explore the porous boundaries between animation, found footage, and collage, and argue that these seemingly separate genres of the moving image coalesce, under certain circumstances, to form a cohesive discourse on the afterlife of images. In their more self-reflective moments, these genres show how they rely on an assemblage of individual frames, displacing images, so to speak elongating their shadows in time. The post-mortem reassembly of disjointed images may serve as a commentary on the need for medial and historical readjustment and relocation. I look at works as disparate as Recycled (Lei Lei, 2012) The Day of Perpetual Night (Yang Yongliang, 2012), Self-Surveillance (Ai Weiwei, 2012), Same Old, Brand New (Cao Fei, 2015), and Dragonfly Eyes (Xu Bing, 2017).



Bio:

Yomi Braester is Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, as well as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Beijing Film Academy. He is also the co-editor of Journal of Chinese Cinemas. Among his books are Witness Against History: Literature, Film, and Public Discourse in Twentieth-Century China (2003) and Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban Contract (2010), which won the Joseph Levenson Book Prize. Among his current book projects is Cinephilia Besieged: Viewing Communities and the Ethics of the Image in the People’s Republic of China, which is supported by a Guggenheim fellowship.

(Reminder) (Today!!!)

CHINESE MIGRATION RECONSIDERED: THE CASE OF NICARAGUA, 1880-1980

Speaker: Rudolph Ng, University of Portsmouth
Date: April 24 (Mon)
Time: 16:00-17:30
Venue: Room 1103

Abstract:
After the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) in the United States, a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment swept across the Americas. The Chinese diaspora coped with this challenging phenomenon in different ways. Some communities suffered a substantial loss of material wealth and legal rights. Extreme cases in the United States, Peru, and Mexico involved massacres of the Chinese, which made international headlines. However, some navigated the difficult times with much more success. One was the Chinese in Nicaragua, who took advantage of domestic and foreign assistance and successfully pushed the Nationalist Government in Nanjing to fight for their well-being on the other side of the world. Based on archival documents found in Managua and Taipei, this presentation will trace the origins, negotiations, and final agreements between China and Nicaragua that provided protection for the Chinese in Nicaragua in 1931, at a time when their compatriots elsewhere in Latin America experienced much more restrictive policies. The remarkable economic prosperity and political influence that the Chinese Nicaraguans enjoyed until 1979 suggest an alternative narrative to the story of global Chinese migration. The Nicaraguan case might also give us insights into how a combination of Chinese initiatives and international forces could challenge a pervasively hostile environment.

Short bio:
Rudolph Ng is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Global History at the University of Portsmouth. His research interests revolve around global migration in the nineteenth century and its relations to concepts of humanitarianism and labor rights. Currently, he is preparing a book manuscript on the history of Chinese migration to Cuba, Peru, and Chile during the nineteenth century, when the Chinese laborers essentially replaced the dwindling population of African slaves post-abolitionist movement. He has taught various courses in Asian and Latin American history. Prior to assuming the lectureship at Portsmouth, he was a Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and Lecturer in Modern Chinese History at Birkbeck, University of London

THE ACTIVIST AND THE Q***R IN CONTEMPORARY WHITE SNAKE PRODUCTIONS

Speaker: Liang Luo 羅靚, University of Kentucky

Moderator: Xiaolu Ma 馬筱璐, HKUST

Date: May 2 (Tue) 08:00-10:00 pm (HKT) / 08:00-10:00 am (NY)

Registration Link: https://hkust.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAkde6tpzgvGtVkFdIeITy9aNHZOi4y6Blv #/registration

Abstract
Inspired by the Chinese white snake legend, three English-language White Snake projects, ranging from Western opera, digital video, to stage play, energetically engage with issues relevant to minority activism in the United States, enriching our understanding of contemporary White Snake repertoire as vigorously multivalent, constantly regenerating, and profoundly empowering. In the Chinese context, three Chinese-language White Snake productions, ranging from TV drama series, animation film, to TV film with an all-child cast, use images of children and females to challenge a world dominated by adults and males, q***ring the heteronormative romance in the White Snake story, and presenting a bold celebration of the humanity of the nonhuman. We have a lot to learn from these activist, q***r bodies of the snake women hybrids, as they continuously teach us the importance of cultural empathy and the power of radical tolerance.

Bio
Liang Luo is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China (University of Michigan Press, 2014) and The Global White Snake (University of Michigan Press, 2021). Both books are forthcoming in Chinese. Her new book and documentary project is on the relationship between the European left, black internationalism, and Chinese revolution. Professor Luo's research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Research Foundation of Korea, the International Center for the Studies of Chinese Civilization at Fudan University, and the Humanities Research Centre at Australian National University, among others. She is an external reviewer for the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, the outgoing chair of the Modern and Contemporary Chinese forum of the Modern Language Association, and she served as a conference program committee member for the Association for Asian Studies.

【COVERT HISTORY OF THE US-CHINA COLD WAR】

Speaker: John Delury, Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS)

Moderator: David Cheng Chang, HKUST

Date: April 28 (FRI) 9-10:30 am (Hong Kong)/10-11:30 am (Seoul)/
April 27 (THU) 9-10:30 pm (NY)

Registration Link: https://hkust.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwpf-itrzkvGtRa38GwHk9XJ9zbzoKXtaNu

Abstract
Drawing upon his recently published book Agents of Subversion, John Delury will explore the covert history of the Cold War between the United States and China from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. He will discuss different kinds of Cold War “battlefields”—from New Haven to Hong Kong, Korea to Manchuria—where ideas were weaponized in policy debates as well as clandestine missions. Following the trail of one particular CIA mission into the PRC at the height of the Korean War, Delury will offer a framework for understanding US-China Cold War diplomacy (and the lack thereof) that might offer at least cautionary lessons for the present.

Bio
John Delury is Professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS) in Seoul, Korea. He is the author of Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China (Cornell University Press, 2022) and co-author with Orville Schell, of Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century (Random House, 2013). On faculty at Yonsei since 2010, Delury serves as Chair of International Studies at Yonsei’s Underwood International College (UIC) and founding Director of the Yonsei Center for Oceania Studies. His articles can be found in Asian Survey, Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Cold War History, and Late Imperial China, and essays in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and Washington Post. John is a public intellectual fellow of the National Committee on US-China Relations, senior fellow of the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations, board member of the Pacific Century Institute, leadership council member of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and non-resident fellow at the Sejong Institute and CSIS. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, National Committee on North Korea, Association of Asian Studies, American Historical Association, and Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. John received his BA, MA, and PhD in history from Yale University.

【一起抗戰口述歷史: 我是怎樣做口述歷史的】

講者：賴恩典 紀錄片導演、攝影師
主持人：常成 人文學部副教授
日期: 4月25日 (二) 下午4:30-6:00
地點： 1103 教室
無需報名

摘要：

2010年，正當全國各地民間志願者對抗戰老兵的關愛如火如荼的時候，老兵也正在不斷離世。 每個歷史親歷者的離世，就意味著一段歷史的消逝，一個關愛抗戰老兵志願者將鏡頭對準了這群耄耋之年的老人。十幾年來，他耗盡積蓄並四處化緣，獨自一人跨越大江南北、飛越臺灣海峽、橫跨太平洋，用他的鏡頭和話筒，逆時間之流，記錄了137位平均年齡96歲的抗戰老兵，搶救了42000分鐘即將凋謝的記憶，讓更多的人可以有機會瞭解不一樣視角的歷史。
此次，這位堅持了將近14年的民間口述歷史記錄者，將為大家分享他記錄口述歷史的經歷和實際操作經驗。歡迎對口述歷史感興趣的朋友，一起交流探討。

賴恩典簡介

賴恩典，福建人，獨立紀錄片導演、攝影師。
2005年策劃騎單車走滇緬公路，歷時60余天，騎行千餘公里，拍攝紀錄片《重返滇緬路》，同年該片被列入中共中宣部、國家新聞出版總署關於「紀念抗日戰爭勝利六十週年全國四十部重大歷史題材作品」之一。
2007-2008年，在廈門發起設計、印刷和義賣T恤，籌款數萬元資金幫助老兵。
2009年，設計中國大陸第一本關於抗戰史的掛歷並進行義賣捐助老兵。
2015年，導演紀錄片《老兵回家》，又名《鄉關何處》。本片獲2015中國公益映像節最高獎–金蝴蝶獎。
同年，受荷蘭華僑邀請，導演紀錄片《同根之旅》，在北京和台北導演拍攝了6位抗戰老兵，以此紀念抗戰勝利70週年。
2017年6月，獲南京師範大學抗日戰爭研究中心，攜手季我努學社、南京民間抗戰博物館，並邀請騰訊歷史、鳳凰歷史、網易軍事、中華軍事、一點資訊軍事歷史中心等媒體單位，聯合舉辦的第一屆抗戰老兵口述歷史訪談徵文大賽一等獎。
2018年3月，受澳洲國立大學邀請，赴澳分享口述歷史創作。
2010年至今，利用業餘時間奔赴中國18省以及港澳台和美國等國家與地區70個城市，搶救性記錄了137位抗戰老兵的口述歷史，包括飛虎隊、諾曼底登陸戰參與者、南僑機工、慰安婦、海軍、抗日殺奸團、偽軍等，總口述時長42,000分鐘。
2022年出版口述歷史專書《逆流者--抗日殺奸團成員口述歷史實錄 》。

【蔣介石、宋子文與戰時中美關係：顛覆我們熟知的史實與史觀
講者：郭岱君 斯坦福大學胡佛研究所研究員】

主持人：常成 人文學部副教授

日期: 4月21日 (五) 早上十一時

地點： Room 4621

無需報名

摘要：
抗戰時期，中美關係最突出的幾件事當屬同盟作戰、開羅會議、以及史迪威事件；其中的關鍵人物都是蔣介石、宋子文。長期以來，普遍的認知是：中美攜手對日，起初合作無間，後來卻轉為嫌隙不斷；開羅會議是國民政府外交的重大成就；宋子文飛揚跋扈、以權謀私；史迪威與蔣介石鬧翻，鎩羽而歸等等。然而，近幾年開放的新檔案提供了新線索，當我們跳出民族與意識形態的框框，重新審視這段歷史，若干新發現竟顛覆了我們熟知的史實與史觀。

蔣介石、宋子文既是長官部屬，又是姻親郎舅；蔣威權自持，謹慎保守，宋則敏銳機變，不拘一格。1940年6月，蔣介石指派宋子文為其駐華府「特別代表」，宋子文很快在華府做得風生水起，但1943年10月返國述職時，卻和蔣介石大吵一架，並被蔣禁止參與任何中美事務。郎舅間的爭執成了公務上的決裂，對中美關係影響不小。我們嘗試揭開一些不為人知的史實，發現蔣宋間的互動複雜微妙，而環繞他們的戰時中美關係瞬息萬變，更讓人跌破眼鏡，嘆為觀止。



郭岱君 簡介
現任斯坦福大學胡佛研究所研究員；曾任斯坦福大學東亞研究所講座教授, 中歐國際工商學院導師, 北京大學、復旦大學、浙江大學客座教授。2003年，發起“胡佛研究院現代中國特藏檔案蒐藏與研究計劃”，新藏檔案包括國民黨檔案（1894-1964）、蔣介石日記、蔣經國日記、以及宋子文、孔祥熙等人的個人文件。這些歷史文獻已在斯坦福大學向公眾開放，吸引了無數學者，出版了許多關於蔣介石及現代中國歷史的文章和書籍。致力組織多國學者合作的研究及出版計畫，例如：“Unlocking Modern China History: Chiang Kai-shek and His Diaries”、“Revisiting the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, 1931-1945”等。

主要著作：
《重探抗戰史》（Revisiting the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, 1931-1945） (3 卷)
《走進蔣介石》（All about Chiang Kai-shek）
Taiwan’s Economic Transformation: Leadership, Property Rights, and Institutional Change
T. V. Soong in Modern Chinese History
China’s Quest for Unification, National Security, and Modernization
T. V. Soong: Selected Minutes of Meetings with Foreign Leaders, 1940-1949
T. V. Soong: Selected War Correspondences, 1940-1943
T. V. Soong: His Life and Times

【IMPROBABLE DIPLOMATS: HOW PING-PONG PLAYERS, MUSICIANS, AND SCIENTISTS REMADE US-CHINA RELATIONS】

Speaker: Dr. Pete Millwood (HKU)

Moderator: Prof. David Cheng Chang (HKUST)

Format: In Person

Time: Wed, April 19 , 16:30–18:00 pm

Venue: Room 2504 (No registration is needed)

Abstract:
In 1971, Americans made two historic visits to China that would transform relations between the two countries. One was by US official Henry Kissinger; the other, earlier, visit was by the US table tennis team. Historians have mulled over the transcripts of Kissinger's negotiations with Chinese leaders. However, they have overlooked how, alongside these diplomatic talks, a rich program of travel and exchange had begun with ping-pong diplomacy. Improbable Diplomats reveals how a diverse cast of Chinese and Americans — athletes and physicists, performing artists and seismologists — played a critical, but to date overlooked, role in remaking US-China relations. Based on new sources from more than a dozen archives in China and the United States, Pete Millwood argues that the significance of cultural and scientific exchanges went beyond reacquainting the Chinese and American people after two decades of minimal contact; exchanges also powerfully influenced Sino-American diplomatic relations and helped transform post-Mao China.

Bio
Pete Millwood is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Hong Kong. A specialist in the history of U.S.-China relations, he received his DPhil in History from Oxford and then held postdoctoral fellowships at Tsinghua and Oxford Universities and the London School of Economics. He conducted archival research towards Improbable Diplomats during fellowships at Peking University and the Library of Congress. Dr Millwood's research and writing has appeared in Diplomatic History, the Journal of Contemporary History, the South China Morning Post, History Today, and the Washington Post.

【記錄片放映: 《蕭軍六記》 及 映後座談會】

講者：魏時煜 （導演、香港城市大學創意媒體學院副教授）
主持人：常成 教授 (人文學部)
日期: 4月18日 (五) 晚上七時
地點： 2023.04.18 (TUE) 7:00–10:00 pm LTC (夏利萊博士及夫人演講廳)
Language 語言: Chinese 中文 (中英字幕 bilingual subtitle)
無需報名

SYNOPSIS 影片簡介:
A Life in Six Chapters presents a visual portrait of Xiao Jun (1907-1988), a left-wing Chinese writer who befriended the literary figure Lu Xun and the political giant Mao Zedong. The film spans more than 60 years from the 1920s to the 1980s, taking a tour of China’s literary scene, and introducing renowned writers like Lu Xun, Xiao Hong, Hu Feng, Ding Ling, Nie Gannu, Ai Qing, Lao She, and more. Xiao Jun’s romances and struggles are set against the backdrop of twentieth century China, including the 14-year Sino-Japanese War, the Communist rectification campaigns, post-1949 political movements, the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution, and, finally, the early years of the country’s opening-up.

A disciple of Lu Xun, Xiao Jun tried throughout his life to hold on to his mentor’s spirit of intellectual autonomy free from political influence. Although he befriended some of the CCP’s top leaders, from Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to Chen Yun and Peng Zhen, he never joined the party. Even a campaign of criticism against him could not persuade him and he is remembered as one of a few Chinese writers who survived without bending to politics.

《蕭軍六記》圍繞左翼作家蕭軍起伏跌宕的人生，呈現了他所經歷的二十世紀的中國。1931 年日軍侵占東北之後，他和蕭紅逃離哈爾濱，在上海受到新文學之父魯迅先生的提携，以《八月的鄉村》蜚聲文壇。從東北到上海、到延安、到北京，蕭軍所交往的文學名家無數，與蕭紅是三十年代最著名的文壇雋侶，與胡風和聶紺弩同爲魯迅“最後的弟子”，與丁玲、艾青、舒群、白朗、羅烽等人的友誼複雜而深厚。蕭軍一直秉承魯迅精神，不願為任何政治黨派左右。抗戰期間，他在延安結識了毛澤東、周恩來、陳雲、彭真等中國共產黨高級領導人，但本人卻一直未入黨。

本片透過導演從 2003 年至 2020 年之間對很多文壇名家所作的訪談，采納蕭軍本人 1980 年所作四次公開演講的錄音做旁白，讓觀衆能夠聆聽他的聲音。同時，跟隨蕭軍蕭紅的旅程，影片呈現了 1920 年代末的東北，1930 年代的哈爾濱、青島、上海、武漢、臨汾、西安、蘭州，1940 年代的延安、香港、瀋陽，以及 1950 至 1980 年代北京的景象，展示了超過半個世紀的歷史畫卷



S. LOUISA WEI’S FILMOGRAPHY 魏時煜影視作品:
As Writer-Director 導演作品

2019 Writing 10000 Miles 漂泊者蕭紅 (RTHK TV documentary, writer and director)

2019 Havana Divas 古巴花旦 (Director’s Cut, feature documentary, writer and director)

2018 Havana Divas 古巴花旦 (feature documentary, writer and director)

2016 Wang Shiwei: The Buried Writer 王實味：被淹沒的作家 (TV documentary, writer and director)

2014 Golden Gate Girls 金門銀光夢 (feature documentary, writer and director)

2009 Storm under the Sun 紅日風暴 (feature documentary, co-producer, co-director and co-writer with Xiaolian Peng)

2006 Cui Jian: Rocking China 崔健：搖滾中國 (TV documentary short, writer and director)



As Co-Writer / Co-Producer 聯合編劇/監製作品

2017 We the Workers 凶年之畔 (feature documentary, executive producer)

2007 Gun of Mercy 五顆子彈 (feature film, primary screenwriter)

2007 Ming Ming 明明 (feature film, co-writer)

Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War

Speaker: Prof. Taomo Zhou (Nanyang Technological University)
Moderator: Prof. David Cheng Chang (HKUST)
Format: Online
Register (https://hkust.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAsc-ChrjIjEtety2BlpoTdW4-CvWs84bI2)
Time: Fri, April 14 , 09:00–10:30 am

Abstract:
What happens when geostrategic collaborations between states intersect with ethnic tensions? In response to this question, this talk examines how two of the world’s most populous countries interacted between 1945 and 1967, when the concept of citizenship was contested, political loyalty was in question, national identity was fluid, and the boundaries of political mobilization were blurred. Even though China and Indonesia do not share geographical borders, the existence of 2.5 million ethnic Chinese in Indonesia—many of whom had economic influence but an unclear citizenship status—gave rise to a porous social frontier. Through their everyday social, political and economic practices, “ordinary” Chinese diaspora influenced bilateral diplomacy. Their life experiences were shaped by but also helped shape the trajectory of governmental relations.



Bio
Taomo Zhou is an Associate Professor of History at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, specializing in modern Chinese and Southeast Asian history. Taomo received her Ph.D. from Cornell University. Her writings have appeared in journals such as Diplomatic History, Journal of Asian Studies, and The China Quarterly. Taomo’s first book, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia and the Cold War (Cornell University Press, 2019), won a Foreign Affairs “Best Books of 2020” award and an Honorable Mention for the 2021 Harry J. Benda Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. Taomo is currently working on her second book project tentatively entitled “Made in Shenzhen: A Global History of China’s First Special Economic Zone,” which is under contract with Stanford University Press.

【THE TORMENTED ALLIANCE: AMERICAN SERVICEMEN AND THE OCCUPATION OF CHINA, 1941–1949 】

Speaker: Prof. Zach Fredman (Duke Kunshan University)

Moderator: Prof. David Cheng Chang (HKUST)

Format: In-person only (no registration is required)

Time: Wed, 29 March, 4:30–6:00 pm

Venue: Room 2404 (Lift 25)


Abstract
Zach Fredman’s The Tormented Alliance examines the formation, evolution, and undoing of the alliance between the United States and the Republic of China during World War II and the Chinese Civil War. Drawing on English and Chinese-language sources from all areas of China where US forces deployed during the 1940s, I show how each side brought to the alliance expectations that the other side was simply unable to meet, resulting in a tormented relationship across all levels of Sino-American engagement. Entangled in larger struggles over race, gender, and nation, the U.S. military in China transformed itself into a widely loathed occupation force: an aggressive, resentful, emasculating source of physical danger and compromised sovereignty. After Japan's surrender and the spring 1946 withdrawal of Soviet forces from Manchuria, the U.S. occupation became the chief obstacle to consigning foreign imperialism in China irrevocably to the past. Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek lost his country in 1949, and the U.S. military presence contributed to his defeat. The occupation of China also cast a long shadow, establishing patterns that have followed the U.S. military elsewhere in Asia up to the present.

Bio
Zach Fredman is Assistant Professor of History and Associate Chair of the Division of Arts and Humanities at Duke Kunshan University. His research focuses on US-China and US-East Asian Relations. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at Dartmouth College and Nanyang Technological University.