Speaker:

Professor Paul Evans
HSBC Chair of Asian Research, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Canada

Date & Time:

Thursday, 18 February 2021
10:00 am – 11:30 am (Singapore Time)

Programme:

Introduction by Professor Bert Hofman, Director, EAI, NUS
Lecture by Professor Paul Evans
Comments by Professor Wang Gungwu, University Professor, NUS
Questions and Discussion

Video recording:

Please visit EAI’s YouTube channel for a video recording of the lecture.

Abstract:

The darkest period in US-PRC relations was not the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency. Rather it was the 1950s, a decade that began with the Korean War and continued with the consolidation of Communist rule, including land reform, anti-rightist campaigns and the Great Leap Forward. In the United States the “Who lost China?” debate mutated into virulent anti-communism and McCarthyism as well as the diplomacy of containment and isolation and the prospect of what often seemed to be immanent military conflict.

It was a difficult and dangerous period for the two countries and for America’s China specialists. Building on his 1988 biography of John Fairbank and new materials available in his private papers, Professor Evan’s presentation revisits Fairbank’s activities as scholar, institution builder and policy commentator during the first era of the Cold War.

The lecture will examine three main issues with continuing relevance: how scholars can explain China to a hostile America; how to construct the ideas and institutions for a long-term intellectual engagement with China; and how to set the liberal moral compass for navigating major civilisational and political differences. What can academics offer in an era of strategic competition? What might Fairbank say to the new Biden administration?

About the Speaker:

Paul Evans is Professor and HSBC Chair of Asian Research at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He has directed projects and institutes at York University, the University of Toronto, Harvard University and UBC. Between 2005 and 2008 he served as Co-CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. In addition to his 1988 biography of John Fairbank, his books and essays have focused on Canada-China relations, regional security issues and multilateralism. A Canadian representative on the ASEAN Regional Forum’s Experts and Eminent Persons group, he has had visiting appointments at more than a dozen research institutes and universities in Asia and North America and speaks regularly to the public, media and government.

About the Commentator:

Professor Wang Gungwu is best-known for his explorations of Chinese history in the long view, and for his writings on the Chinese diaspora. He is University Professor at the National University of Singapore, and Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. Professor Wang received his BA and MA from the University of Malaya (UM) in Singapore, and PhD at the University of London. He held the History Chair at UM in Kuala Lumpur from 1963 to 1968 and the Chair of Far Eastern History at the Australian National University, 1968 to 1986, where he was also Director of the Research of Pacific Studies, 1975-1980. From 1986 to 1995, he was Vice-Chancellor of The University of Hong Kong. He was Director of the East Asian Institute from 1997 to 2007 and Chairman from 2007 to 2018. Professor Wang is a Commander of the British Empire; Fellow, and former President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities; Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Member of Academia Sinica; and Honorary Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He was conferred the International Academic Prize, Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prizes and the Tang Prize in Sinology.