Short Biography

With two Ph. D.s in history and Asian studies, Prof. Dong Wang specializes in U.S.-China relations, modern/contemporary China, global history, geoculture, and geopolitics. Among many professional titles, she is Asian Studies book collection editor at Lived Places Publishing (New York), vice chair of the AAS editorial board, H-Diplo review editor (U.S.), a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, research association at the Harvard Fairbank Center (since 2002), and an elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Her books in English include: Tse Tsan Tai (1872-1938): An Australian-Cantonese Opinion Maker in British Hong Kong(2023), Longmen’s Stone Buddhas and Cultural Heritage (2020), The United States and China (2nd and rev. ed. 2021), Managing God’s Higher Learning: U.S.-China Cultural Encounter and Canton Christian College (Lingnan University), 1888-1952 (2007), and China’s Unequal Treaties: Narrating National History(2005).

Project

Taiwan in international law as a topic for research and public education requires new, thorough, and independent historical and legal approaches with clarity which factor in the evolving Taiwanese nationalism and ability to govern its own statehood that elicits the support of the world community. From the cold war via globalization to a territory coupled and decoupled within new power constellations and Taiwanese national identity, this research project traces the geo-politics and geo-culture of international law in the case of Taiwan particularly from 1951 to 1979. What lessons did Taiwanese learn from their drastic loss of diplomatic recognition by other countries during the last five decades? Such an academic inquiry will form a natural sequel to Dr. Dong Wang’s bestseller book from 2005, China’s Unequal Treaties: Narrating National History. It will seamlessly pick up where the above book ends; it will also elaborate on the issues that are not fully addressed in her other well-acclaimed work, The United States and China: A History from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (2013, 2nd revised edition 2021), the long chapter for the SHAFR Guide (Brill & the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, 2022), as well as her opening chapter, “American Presence in the Indo-Pacific before World War II: Trends, Strategic Thinking, and Diplomatic Realities,” in The Routledge Handbook of US Foreign Policy on The Indo-Pacific (2023), edited by Oliver Turner, Nicola Nymala and Wali Aslam.