I am a historian of modern China and professor at Yonsei University in Seoul, where I teach graduate students at the Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS) and undergrads at Yonsei’s Underwood International College (UIC). This academic year, it is my great honor to be based in Italy as the inaugural Tsao Family Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. 

My recent book, Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China, was published last year with Cornell University Press. Agents of Subversion combines Chinese and US history in order to tell the hidden story of the two nations’ Cold War struggle. Unraveling the tangled skein of a Korean War-era covert op gone wrong, the book weaves together intellectual, intelligence, and diplomatic history of the US-China relationship from the end of World War II up through the Nixon visit to Beijing. As talk of a new Cold War heats up, it seems a good time to take a fresh look at the actual, historical Cold War relationship between Washington and Beijing.

My previous book, Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century, was co-authored with Orville Schell of the Asia Society.  A history of modern China written around biographical sketches of a dozen key leaders and thinkers, Wealth and Power was published by Random House in 2013, just as Xi Jinping was coming to power. Sadly, the book’s thesis seems to have only gained relevance in the decade since. 

My next book will explore the Confucian ideal of empire. Anchored in the historical moment of China’s last imperial transition (from the Ming to the Qing dynasty), I will be probing how the vestiges of classical thinking about empire shapes mentalities today. The book will also build in a comparative dimension by juxtaposing Chinese and Western ideas of empire, work made easier by spending the year in Italy as a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. 

In the blog posts, articles, essays, op-eds, and book reviews on this site, I am mostly trying to use historical thinking to shed light on current issues in China, the two Koreas, and US policy in the region– from politics and ideas in the PRC, to the intensifying US-China rivalry, to the intractable problem of what to do about North Korea. Thanks for reading!

思而不學