Bio
I study modern Chinese history, U.S. foreign relations, and the Cold War international history. My research has focused on history of U.S.—China relations. My first book, Isolating the Enemy: Diplomatic Strategy in China and the United States, 1953–1956 was published by the Columbia University Press in 2021. Using archives from mainland China, Taiwan, Russia, Vietnam, the United Kingdom and the United States, including reclassified Chinese Foreign Ministry documents, Isolating the Enemy puts Sino-American interactions into the broader context of their relations with allies and explores the two countries’ perceptions/misperceptions of each other. I am now working on two projects: the first one is a history of the relations between the state of Iowa and China; the second one studies the interactions between the U.K., the U.S. and China during the Cold War period. At Iowa State University, I teach HIST 2070: Chinese Civilization; HIST 2550: Modern World History; HIST 3360: Ancient China; HIST 3370: Modern China; HIST3910: American Diplomatic History; and HIST 4790: China and the Cold War; and HIST 4950: Historiorgraphy and Research Writing.
Ask An Historian
What memorable teaching moment have you had?
At the beginning of Spring 2020, when I introduced the traditional Chinese calendar system in my modern China class, I talked about how the Chinese believed that similar things would happen in the same year in the 60-year cycle of the traditional Chinese calendar. The year 2020 was a “gengzi,” which appeared in 1840, 1900, and 1960 in modern history. Since disasters happened in all the previous gengzi years, people were talking about possibilities for 2020. My students laughed at the Chinese superstition, but then rumors started about a mysterious virus in Wuhan. In about a month, the campus was locked down and all the classes moved online. I believe the students in my class remember the traditional Chinese calendar system!