This talk introduces Imperial Gateway, which explores the political, social, and economic significance of colonial Taiwan in the southern expansion of Japan’s empire from 1895 to the end of World War II. The book uncovers a half century of dynamic relations between Japan, Taiwan, China, and Western regional powers. Japanese officials in Taiwan did not simply take orders from Tokyo; rather, they often pursued their own expansionist ambitions in South China and Southeast Asia. When outright conquest was not possible, they promoted alternative strategies, including naturalizing resident Chinese as overseas Taiwanese subjects, extending colonial police networks, and deploying tens of thousands of Taiwanese to war. The Taiwanese—merchants, gangsters, policemen, interpreters, nurses, and soldiers—seized new opportunities for socioeconomic advancement that did not always align with Japan’s imperial interests. Imperial Gateway shows how Japanese officials and Taiwanese subjects transformed Taiwan into a regional gateway for expansion in an ever-shifting international order.

Speaker

Professor Seiji Shirane is an Assistant Professor of Japanese History at The City College of New York (CUNY). He received degrees in history from Yale University (BA) and Princeton University (PhD), and his work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright, Social Science Research Council, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Moderator

A native of China, Professor Daqing Yang graduated from Nanjing University and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He specialized in the history of modern Japan. His research interests include the Japanese empire, technological developments in modern Japan, and the legacies of World War II in East Asia.

In 2004, Dr. Yang was appointed a Historical Consultant to The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group at the U.S. National Archives. In fall 2006, Dr. Yang served as the Edwin O. Reischauer Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies at Harvard University.

Professor Yang is a founding co-director of the Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia Pacific program based in the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, and is currently working on a new project on postwar China-Japan reconciliation. He is the author of Technology of Empire: Telecommunications and Japanese Expansion in Asia, 1883-1945. He co-edited the following books: Memory, Identity, and Commemorations of World War II: Anniversary Politics in Asia Pacific; Toward a History Beyond Borders: Contentious Issues in Sino-Japanese Relations, which was also published simultaneously in China and Japan; Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia; and Communications Under the Seas: The Evolving Cable Network and Its Implications.

As part of our New Books in Asia Series, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies will host a talk by Professor Emeritus of History and International Affairs, Ronald H. Spector about his new book A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Post-War Asia, 1945-1955. Sigur Center Director Gregg A. Brazinsky will moderate the event.

The end of World War II led to the United States’ emergence as a global superpower. For war-ravaged Western Europe it marked the beginning of decades of unprecedented cooperation and prosperity that one historian has labeled “the long peace.” Yet half a world away, in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea, and Malaya—the fighting never really stopped, as these regions sought to completely sever the yoke of imperialism and colonialism with all-too-violent consequences.

East and Southeast Asia quickly became the most turbulent regions of the globe. Within weeks of the famous surrender ceremony aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, civil war, communal clashes, and insurgency engulfed the continent, from Southeast Asia to the Soviet border. By early 1947, full-scale wars were raging in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, with growing guerrilla conflicts in Korea and Malaya. Within a decade after the Japanese surrender, almost all of the countries of South, East, and Southeast Asia that had formerly been conquests of the Japanese or colonies of the European powers experienced wars and upheavals that resulted in the deaths of at least 2.5 million combatants and millions of civilians.

With A Continent Erupts, acclaimed military historian Ronald H. Spector draws on letters, diaries, and international archives to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive military history and analysis of these little-known but decisive events. Far from being simply offshoots of the Cold War, as they have often been portrayed, these shockingly violent conflicts forever changed the shape of Asia, and the world as we know it today.

A Continent Erupts can be purchased from W. W. Norton. This event is free, on the record, and open to the public. 

Speaker

Ronald H. Spector is an award-winning Professor Emeritus of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins and his MA and Ph.D. from Yale. He is the author of seven books, including Eagle Against the Sun and In the Ruins of Empire.

He has served in various government positions and on active duty in the Marine Corps from 1967-69 and 1983-84, and was the first civilian to become Director of Naval History and the head of the Naval Historical Center. He has served on the faculties of LSU, Alabama, and Princeton and has been a senior Fulbright lecturer in India and Israel. In 1995-96 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Strategy at the National War College and was the Distinguished Guest Professor at Keio University, Tokyo in 2000.

Moderator

Gregg A. Brazinsky works on U.S.-East Asian relations and East Asian international history. He is interested in the flow of commerce, ideas, and culture among Asian countries and across the Pacific. He is proficient in Mandarin Chinese and Korean. He is the author of two books: Winning the Third World (2017), which focuses on Sino-American Rivalry in the Third World and Nation Building in South Korea (2007), which explores U.S.-South Korean relations during the Cold War. Currently, he is working on two other book projects. The first examines American nation-building in Asia during the Cold War. The second explores Sino-North Korean relations between 1949 and 1992 and focuses specifically on the development of cultural and economic ties between the two countries. He has received numerous fellowships to support his research including the Kluge Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Smith Richardson Foundation junior faculty fellowship, and a fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Center. Professor Brazinsky also currently serves as the director of the George Washington Cold War Group.

As director of the Asian Studies Program, Professor Brazinsky has attracted some of the brightest students from around the country and the world who share a commitment to pursuing careers related to Asia. He helped to launch a special mentoring program for Asian Studies MA students and has worked to expand fellowship and professional opportunities for students in the program.

Opening Remarks

Alyssa Ayres was appointed dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs and professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University effective February 1, 2021. She is the first woman to serve in the role of permanent dean at the school. Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. From 2013 to 2021, she was senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow.

Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Her book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2018 and was selected by the Financial Times for its “Summer 2018: Politics” list. An updated paperback edition was released in 2019. Ayres is also interested in the emergence of subnational engagement in foreign policy, particularly the growth of international city networks, and her current book project (working title, “Bright Lights, Biggest Cities: The Urban Challenge to India’s Future,” under contract with Oxford University Press) examines India’s urban transformation and its international implications.

From 2010 to 2013 Ayres served as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia. During her tenure at the State Department in the Barack Obama administration, she covered all issues across a dynamic region of 1.3 billion people at the time (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) and provided policy direction for four U.S. embassies and four consulates. Before serving in the Obama administration, Ayres was founding director of the India and South Asia practice at McLarty Associates, the Washington-based international strategic advisory firm, from 2008 to 2010, and served as a part-time senior advisor to the firm from 2014 to 2021. From 2007 to 2008, she served as special assistant to the undersecretary of state for political affairs as a CFR international affairs fellow. Prior to that she worked at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Advanced Study of India and at the Asia Society in New York.

Originally trained as a cultural historian, Ayres has carried out research on both India and Pakistan. Her book on nationalism, culture, and politics in Pakistan, Speaking Like a State, was published worldwide by Cambridge University Press in 2009 and received an American Institute of Pakistan Studies book prize for 2011–2012. She has coedited three books on India and Indian foreign policy: Power Realignments in Asia; India Briefing: Takeoff at Last?; and India Briefing: Quickening the Pace of Change.

Ayres has been awarded numerous fellowships and has received four group or individual Superior Honor Awards for her work at the State Department. She speaks Hindi and Urdu, and in the mid-1990s worked as an interpreter for the International Committee of the Red Cross. She received an AB from Harvard College and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, a member of the Halifax International Security Forum’s agenda working group, and a member of the Women’s Foreign Policy Group board of directors. In 2021 and 2022, the Washingtonian included her as one of their “most influential people shaping policy.”

The Sigur Center invites you to its upcoming 2021 New Books in Asian Studies event with author Neilesh Bose!

Editor

Neilesh Bose is an historian of modern South Asia and its diasporas. His research interests include religion, colonialism, decolonization, and migration. He currently holds the Tier II Canada Research Chair in Global and Comparative History at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. In addition to the work under discussion, he has published Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal (Oxford, 2014) as well as articles in journals such as BC Studies, Modern Asian Studies, and South Asia Research.

Contributors

Daniel Kent Carrasco is a historian of South Asia, North America and the shared histories of the Third World. He teaches at UNAM, the National University in Mexico City. 

Andrea Wright is an assistant professor of Anthropology and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies at William & Mary. Andrea Wright examines the histories of capitalism and its contemporary expressions in South Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. Her first book Between Dreams and Ghosts: Indian Migration and Middle Eastern Oil (Stanford University Press, November 2021) uses ethnographic and archival materials to explore labor migration as a social process that shapes global capitalism. Currently, Wright is finishing her second book, Producing Labor Hierarchies: A History of Oil in the Arabian Sea, which uncovers the process by which the lines between citizens and noncitizens were drawn and enforced in South Asia and the Middle East over the course of the twentieth century.

Moderator

Benjamin D. Hopkins is Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies. Hopkins is a historian of modern South Asia, specializing in the history of Afghanistan and British imperialism on the Indian subcontinent. He has authored, co-authored, and co-edited numerous books on the region. Hopkins has received fellowships from the Council on Foreign Relations, the National University of Singapore, the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, and the Wilson Center in DC. Writing for the public, he has been featured in The New York Times, The National Interest, and the BBC. Hopkins holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and BSc from the London School of Economics.

Join us for a talk on how modern China’s five paramount leaders have shaped the country.

The event will be held virtually, with a lecture by the author, a discussion between the two speakers, and a moderated Q&A with the audience. Please send advance questions to the Elliott School Research team at esiaresearch@email.gwu.edu.

About the Book

In China’s Leaders: From Mao to Now, renowned Sinologist David Shambaugh offers a refreshing account of China’s dramatic post-revolutionary history through the prism of those who ruled it. Exploring the persona, formative socialization, psychology, and professional experiences of each leader, he shows how their differing leadership styles and ruling tactics shaped China domestically and internationally: Mao was a populist tyrant, Deng a pragmatic Leninist, Jiang a bureaucratic politician, Hu a technocratic apparatchik, and Xi a modern emperor. Covering the full scope of these leaders’ personalities and power, this is an illuminating guide to China’s modern history and understanding how the country has become the superpower of today.

Author

David Shambaugh is the Gaston Sigur Professor of Asian Studies, Political Science, & International Affairs at the George Washington University, and the founding Director of the China Policy Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs. He is an internationally recognized authority and award-winning author on contemporary China and the international relations of Asia. An active public intellectual and frequent commentator in the international media, he serves on numerous editorial boards, and has been a consultant to governments, research institutions, foundations, universities, corporations, banks, and investment funds. As an author, Dr. Shambaugh has published more than 30 books and 300 articles, including most recently Where Great Powers Meet (Oxford, 2020), China & the World (Oxford, 2020) and China’s Future (Polity, 2016). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.

Moderator

Alyssa Ayres is the Dean of the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, with a background as a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Before joining the Elliott School, she was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia under the Obama administration. Her book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Why did the communist-led resistance in Vietnam win the anticolonial war against France everywhere except the south? Join us for a lecture.

In The First Vietnam War, Shawn McHale explores why the communist-led resistance in Vietnam won the anticolonial war against France (1945–54), except in the south. He shows how broad swaths of Vietnamese people were uneasily united in 1945 under the Viet Minh Resistance banner. The unstable union eventually shattered in 1947, and from this point on, the war in the south turned into an overt civil war wrapped up in a war against France. Based on extensive archival research in four countries and in three languages, this is the first substantive English-language book focused on southern Vietnam’s transition from colonialism to independence.

Author

Shawn McHale is an Associate Professor of History and International Affairs at the Elliott School. He has worked and taught extensively on issues surrounding Vietnam, Southeast Asian history, history and memory, and colonialism’s impact and legacy. His other research interests include Buddhism, Confucianism, communism, gender, memory, civil war and violence. He spent the 2007-08 academic year as a Fulbright-Hays fellow in Vietnam and France, and formerly directed the Sigur Center for Asian Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Southeast Asian History from Cornell University.

Moderator

Alyssa Ayres is the Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Before joining the Elliott School, she was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia under the Obama administration. She holds a Ph.D. in South Asian Languages and Literatures from the University of Chicago.

The Sigur Center for Asian Studies will host Dr. Shelley Rigger to launch her new book, The Tiger Leading the Dragon: How Taiwan Propelled China’s Economic Rise as the sixth edition of the 2021 New Books in Asian Studies series. This event will also feature Bruce Dickson, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at GW, as a discussant, and Richard Haddock, Program Associate at the East Asia National Resource Center, as a moderator. The webinar begins at 11:30 AM EDT.

Dr. Rigger’s new book discusses how the once-secretive, isolated People’s Republic of China became the factory to the world. Dr. Rigger convincingly demonstrates that the answer is Taiwan. She follows the evolution of Taiwan’s influence from the period when Deng Xiaoping lifted Mao’s prohibitions on business in the late 1970s, allowing investors from Taiwan to collaborate with local officials in the PRC to transform mainland China into a manufacturing powerhouse. After World War II, Taiwan’s fleet-footed export-oriented manufacturing firms became essential links in global supply chains. In the late 1980s, Taiwanese firms seized the opportunity to lower production costs by moving to the PRC, which was seeking foreign investment to fuel its industrial rise. Within a few years, Taiwan’s traditional manufacturing had largely relocated to the PRC, opening space for a wave of new business creation in information technology. The Tiger Leading the Dragon traces the development of the cross-Taiwan Strait economic relationship and explores how Taiwanese firms and individuals transformed Chinese business practices. It also reveals their contributions to Chinese consumer behavior, philanthropy, religion, popular culture, and law.

For this month’s book giveaway: Attend with the name you registered as and submit a question to be entered to win. Advance questions can be sent to gsigur@gwu.edu with subject “NBAS: The Tiger Leading the Dragon” or directly posted in the live Q&A. The Sigur Center will purchase the book from a local DC bookstore and pay for shipping. The contest is open to U.S. addresses only. 1 entry per person regardless of the number of questions submitted.

Registration closes at 11:30 am on September 29th. Registered guests will receive an email with instructions for joining WebEx prior to the event. Media inquiries must be sent to gwmedia@gwu.edu in advance. If you need specific accommodations, please contact gsigur@gwu.edu with at least 3 business days’ notice. This event is free, open to the public, and will be recorded.

The Tiger Leading the Dragon: How Taiwan Propelled China’s Economic Rise is available from Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Use promo code RLFANDF30 for a 30% discount!

Shelley Rigger is the Brown Professor of East Asian Politics at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. She has a PhD in Government from Harvard University and a BA in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. She has been a visiting researcher at National Chengchi University in Taiwan (2005) and a visiting professor at Fudan University in Shanghai (2006). Rigger is the author of two books on Taiwan’s domestic politics: Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (Routledge 1999) and From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2001). She has published articles on Taiwan’s domestic politics, the national identity issue in Taiwan-China relations and related topics. Her current research studies the effects of cross-strait economic interactions on Taiwan people’s perceptions of Mainland China. Her monograph, “Taiwan’s Rising Rationalism: Generations, Politics and ‘Taiwan Nationalism’” was published by the East West Center in Washington in November 2006.

Bruce Dickson received his B.A. in political science and English literature, his M.A. in Chinese Studies, and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty of The George Washington University and the Elliott School in 1993. Professor Dickson’s research and teaching focus on political dynamics in China, especially the adaptability of the Chinese Communist Party and the regime it governs. In addition to courses on China, he also teaches on comparative politics and authoritarianism. His current research examines the political consequences of economic reform in China, the Chinese Communist Party’s evolving strategy for survival, and the changing relationship between state and society. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the US Institute of Peace, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 

Richard J. Haddock is currently the Program Associate for the East Asia National Resource Center (NRC), which is supported by a Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education. In this role, Mr. Haddock is primarily responsible for East Asia learning content development, strategic planning and grant management, liaising with key community and educational stakeholders, and reporting to the Department of Education. He is also a member of the UC Berkeley U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group, where he is conducting a research project on the current state and future prospects of Taiwan Studies in the United States. He has held positions at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, the National Democratic Institute’s Asia team, the American Institute in Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy Section, and the U.S. Department of State. Mr. Haddock is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University, focusing on digital democracy and e-governance development in the Asia-Pacific. He holds an M.A. in Asian Studies from the Elliott School, with a concentration on domestic politics and foreign policy of East Asia. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with a B.A. in Political Science and minors in Asian Studies and Diplomacy.

The Sigur Center for Asian Studies will proudly host Jagjeet Lally, lecturer in the History of India at University College London, in the upcoming edition of the 2021 New Books in Asian Studies series to discuss his recently published India and the Silk Roads: The History of a Trading World. After being introduced by Director Benjamin D. Hopkins, he will engage in a conversation about the book with Hasan Karrar, Associate Professor in the humanities and social sciences program at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, who will act as discussant and moderator. The webinar will take place from 10 AM EDT to 11:15 AM EDT on WebEx.

India’s caravan trade with central Asia was at the heart of the complex web of routes making up the Silk Roads. But what was the fate of these overland connections in the ages of sail and steam? Jagjeet Lally sets out to answer this question by bringing the world of caravan trade to life—a world of merchants, mercenaries, pastoralists and pilgrims, but also of kings, bureaucrats and their subjects in the countryside and towns.

India and the Silk Roads is a global history of a continental interior, the first to comprehensively examine the textual and material traces of caravan trade in the ‘age of empires’. By showing how no single ruler could control the nebulous yet durable networks of this trading world, which had its own internal dynamics even as it evolved in step with global transformations, Lally forces us to rethink the history of globalisation and re-evaluate our fixation with empires and states as the building blocks of historical analysis. It is a narrative resonating with our own times, as China’s Belt and Road Initiative brings terrestrial forms of connectivity back to the fore—transforming life across Eurasia once again.

The Sigur Center continues to offer a book giveaway to support research and local business. To be eligible to win, please register and attend with the same name, and be sure to follow us on Twitter. The winner will be randomly selected during the event and contacted for a U.S. address. The Sigur Center will purchase a book from a local DC bookstore and pay for shipping.

India and the Silk Roads: The History of a Trading World is available from Hurst Publishers. Use promo code SILKROADS25 for a discount!