ISS Colloquium with Hao Chen

Description:

International Security Studies continues its Spring 2024 Colloquium Series with a presentation by Hao Chen, a Henry Chauncey ‘57 Postdoctoral Fellow in the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. He will present, “Chapter IV: From Representing ‘China’ to the ‘Third Force’: The PRC’s Struggle for Legitimacy in the Second Asian-African Conference.” This chapter examines the decade of 1955-65 that marked the PRC’s radicalization of pursuing ‘representational legitimacy’ amid Asian-African Internationalism. In the earlier part of this post-Bandung decade, China shared with other Third World countries a broad consensus that Asian-African Internationalism was to be a unified yet pluralistic ‘Third Force’ that pursued moderate, pragmatic, and independent foreign policy between the US-Soviet superpowers. Both the Sino-Soviet Split and the Sino-Indian Border War led the PRC to reconceptualize its ‘representational legitimacy’ beyond the anti-imperial Chinese state and toward the entire Asian-African Internationalism. Beijing abandoned the initial Bandung principles and imposed an anti-US-Soviet world revolutionary direction throughout the collective preparation for the Second Asian-African Conference. Following this, the PRC delegation attempted to convince other conference participants that China was the best example of this renewed and muscular Asian-African ‘Third Force’ due to its simultaneous assaults on the two superpowers. This escalated tensions between China and other Afro-Asian members, eventually bringing down the Second Asian-African Conference in the Fall of 1965.

Chen completed his PhD in History at the University of Cambridge. He specializes in twentieth century international history of East Asia, with emphasis on China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in the post-1945 period. He previously held visiting positions at the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica (Taiwan), the National University of Singapore, and the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW) at Australian National University.

This event is open to the Yale community; lunch will be provided. Reading materials will be sent to all who have registered.