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This is the Nordic Asia podcast.

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Duncan McCargo

Welcome to the Nordic Asia podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asiaacross the Nordic region. I'm Duncan McCargo. I'm director of the Nordic Institute ofAsian Studies and a professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen,and it's a huge pleasure today to be joined by my NIAS and University ofCopenhagen colleague Kuan-Jen Chen or KJ as we usually call him,

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Hi, hello everyone

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Duncan McCargo

Great to have you with us. So newly appointed ADI. That's the Asian DynamicsInitiative, NIAS postdoctoral fellow in Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen.And for those who don't know, is a collaboration across the humanities and socialscience faculties that links together people working on Asia. So this is a greatexample of cooperation between ADI and NIAS. And K.J. recently joined us from theUniversity of Cambridge, where he completed his Ph.D. in 2019, and he works onCold War history in East Asia with a particular emphasis on maritime matters andpower. So K.J., it's great to have you here at NIAS and on the podcast, and perhapswe can get started by getting to know a bit more about you. I know you're fromTaiwan originally, but how did you end up in Cambridge as a historian of the ColdWar?

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Because in Taiwan, I studied modern Chinese history, but I noticed that we could not,you know, you could ignore the relationship with the US and the Soviet Union. If westudy in modern Chinese history. So when I applied for my Ph.D. in Cambridge, Ichose the Cold War as my major, and I realized that this topic is really interestingbecause it's strongly connected o ur, you know, contemporary society and we canunderstand how and why our contemporary society was built and how the making ofour current international politics.

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Duncan McCargo

I know that your Ph.D. has this focus on U.S. maritime policy in East Asia during theCold War, and we know that there's been across a lot of disciplines recently t his sortof oceanic turn a much greater interest in water as opposed to land or water inconjunction with land. It's obviously a fascinating topic, I guess for non-specialistsmight just assume, though so much has been written about East Asia, the Cold Warin the U.S. that there might not be anything new to write. So what's the kind of novelargument that your thesis makes? I'm sure you have found something that nobody'sworked on before.

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Yes, from my research, I think by shifting the historical platforms from land to sea, wecan find many very interesting story behind the Diplomatic language. For example,my first three chapters of my current project, I argue that the Cold War beginsimmediate post-war period in August of 1945, on the sea but not on land. argument. Ialso, I will say, re-examine the political struggle with America's President Trumanadministration to analyze the conflicts between Army and Navy when they just soldfor leadership in the Pacific and what influence it had on the following years.

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Duncan McCargo

Right. This is very interesting to me. I took a course with Ralph Smith at SOAS on theinternational history of the Vietnam War. And one of the main things that I recall fromthat when I was doing my master's degree is the incredible degree of contestationinside the United States military defense and foreign policy establishment aboutexactly how this war should or should not be waged. And perhaps we felt lessemphasis on that in some of these earlier Cold War episodes. So one of yourimportant themes, then, is the extent to which the United States can't just be seen asa unitary actor. Is that right?

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Yeah, yeah, that's correct.

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Duncan McCargo

You mentioned your argument that the Cold War started in 1945, and I guess somepeople might contest that. There are lots of different times when you could suggestthe Cold War began, including or at least in the East Asian context after 1949. In thecase of China, or perhaps from the American perspective, after the long Telegramand Kennan's new doctrines and so forth. Why are you so adamant that 1945 suchan early date is really a convincing moment to begin looking through the lens of theCold War?

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Kuan-Jen Chen

That is a very interesting question. OK? Of course, many people argue that the ColdWar began in 1947 because of the Long Telegram or in 1947, the outbreak of theChinese Civil War, or the 1949 Chinese Civil War, and many scholars, particularlyfrom the US. They argued that Cold War began in 1950 because of the Korean War.But I do believe you noticed that old stories I mention above on land, but few people,few scholars, they focus on what happened on the seas and the Cold War, or eventhe name of war. But for me, the Cold War is not a war. It's the situation to describethe situation or the tension between t wo superpowers and the tension between twosuperpowers, I think between the US and the Soviet Union happened on the seas in1945, particularly in North China, because North China was occupied by Japanbefore 1945, but after just around the old Japanese empire, many powers includeKMT and the CCP. And, of course, the Soviet Union. They attempted to occupythese areas. It's a power pursuing game in North China, and they are very good portsin North China, for example, Qingdao, Dalian and Port Arthur there. So these powersthey chased out for the occupation of these ports, particularly for US. They wereconcerned about Soviet activities in Port Arthur and Dalian. In the Soviet Union theydidn't have (inaudible) in East Asia if they wanted to enter the western Pacific Rim.They had to firmly control the Port Arthur an Dalian in the North China. Therefore, theUS they had to quarter the best fleet in Qingdao is a port close to Port Arthur andDalian to contend the Soviet opposition. So many people, they say, OK, America.The policy of containment maybe began in 1947 or 1950, but from a research on thesea in a maritime space, it it began in 1945.

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Duncan McCargo

Right. So you're arguing that you could see the containment policy if you look in thisEast Asian context with a maritime perspective, before Kennan's even had the ideathat. I could push the I get a bit further and say, isn't the whole term Cold Warcompletely Eurocentric idea? The Cold War is only cold in Europe in relation directlyto the clash between the United States and the Soviet Union. But if we look at whathappened in eastern Southeast Asia, the Cold War is characterized by very, very hotwars the series of wars in Indochina, culminating in the United States war withVietnam, and of course, before the Korean War, arguably the Cold War in East Asia,was a hot war.....

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Well, to some extent, Cold War in East Asia was hot war. It had its own historicalevolution. For example, the Korean War on the Korean Peninsula, China and the warin Southeast Asia. We have to rethink the nature of this hot war in Cold War,particularly when we examine this war from the Western perspective. Maybe we, wehave to check back to East Asia or Southeast Asia, themselves to think why this warhappened and we can rethink a solution without Western powers. This war happenedagain or not.

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Duncan McCargo

I'm very interested in this where you're looking at the problems through the maritimelens and the oceanic terms. That's what we like to call it. However, if we look at theperiod you're focusing on which I guess sort of starts with your preferred date of1945, and I think for your PhD goes to about 1979, during this whole time, none ofthe Asian countries, territories themselves have very much by way of naval power interms of force that could project threat to other countries in the region. The ChineseNavy, the Japanese, Taiwanese, they're all very underdeveloped, let alone theSoutheast Asian counterparts. So isn't the story of maritime power in this Cold Warperiod just a very simple, overwhelming narrative of U.S. hegemony and dominance?Or is there more to it?

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Kuan-Jen Chen

This question is very inspiring because dominance on the sea in maritime East Asia,it's not limited to the military side. That is a reason why I also focused oninternational growth and local interest to argue that in terms of a military side, the USwasn't the only one to dominate the naval power in this area. However, when itcomes to local interest, oil, and the fishing rights, some issues, some matters aboutinternational law, particular limits of territorial waters and limits of the fishing zone. Iwould say America's partners in East Asia, I mean, the South Korea, Philippines,Taiwan and Japan. Sometimes they objected America's position. So in a world theUS had, if (inaudible) during the making of an East Asia to strike a balance betweenitself and local partners so from the military side is very important. But it is not theonly one to take the whole picture of the the maritime East Asia.

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Duncan McCargo

Right. Yes, of course. As a British citizen who grew up in the 1970s, I'm very aware ofthe importance of things like fishing. When I had finally a chance to go to Icelandafter I became director of NIAS, I was able to have a very pleasant dinnerconversation during which we talked about the cod wars of the 1970s and wasinformed by my Icelandic colleagues that Britain had lost those wars, which is not theway that was presented to us in the media at the time. I know that resources are very,very important. And of course, all this has come more and more to the fore latterly, asit were the post-Cold War era with the rise of contestation around the South ChinaSeas and other areas. In what sense does your Ph.D. work in your research Prefigureand illustrate the centrality of some of those conflicts that are now coming to thefore? Can you say a bit about the link between the work that you did and the debatesand tensions now around the South China Seas and other issues?

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Duncan, when I attended every conference, even my topic is not related to the SouthChina Sea. It's about the Yellow Sea or if East China sea, almost everyone asked methat same questions,

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Duncan McCargo

I'm very predictable. Yes, of course I'm a Southeast Asianist, so I'm particularlyinterested in that from from a Southeast Asian perspective. But yes, anyways, sorryfor asking you a question that's probably been asked before, but I suspect that manyof our listeners are also wondering about.

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Kuan-Jen Chen

But, you know, my answer it's almost similar, is that I don't know. I have no idea,because nature of the South China Sea is totally different from the Yellow Sea andthe Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. Because the South China Sea issurrounded by Taiwan, China and the Southeast Asian countries. And it is a verycomplicated issue. It's about the territorial waters and there's some disputed islands.So even though a lot of books talking about the South China Sea in the context ofinternational rule or, you know, some international chess game. But if we go back tohistorical perspective, these questions still have no answers. That is also my nextproject about how the U.S. took advantage of South China Sea took to project itsinfluence particularly military, cultural and economic influence to Southeast Asiaduring the Vietnam War. That is my second project because, you know, in the US,they used the Yellow Sea and China Sea well to make its maritime order in theimmediate post-war period. But this such approach applied to the South China Sea.That is my question.

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Duncan McCargo

Well, very excited to hear that you do plan to work on these issues next to the link inthe Southeast Asian dimension of these questions. I guess where the questioncomes from is just thinking that this is an example of where access to water, shippinglanes and so forth, i ssues like this becomes a focus of intense contestation, whichon some level is about the water in the shipping lanes, on the bits of rock and soforth. But it's also a kind of a proxy cold conflict, which is about growing rivalrybetween the United States, t he challenges to its hegemonic power in the region by aresurgent China. That's that's, I guess, a theme that has some parallels with some ofthe work that you do or development thereof. Maybe you could tell us how youactually conduct your research. I know that you're an historian. You work primarilyfrom documents. But what kinds of documents? What languages and locations doyou work in?

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Duncan McCargo

My research approach has to use a multi-lingual archive to demonstrate the differentperspective from different countries and the primary sources are in Taiwan, Japan,the U.S. and the U.K. example in Taiwan, I was trying to use the diplomaticdocuments in Taipei and some, you know, some unpublished KMT documents in aKMT archives. And in Japan of course, I also use the diplomatic archives in Tokyo,but the subject of my research is the US. So I focused all my energy on the NationalArchives in Maryland, and they are all lot of documents about the Navy, the army, theState Department. And I have to say that my approach is not very smart, becauseafter collecting old documents, I had to at least have read this document two or threetimes to understand the whole context and to then take a note and then read thosenotes again after, I can have a rough picture in my mind. I have to rethink about thequestions I am interested in and to compare my arguments with other scholarsarguments and eventually write something (inaudible). So it takes a long, long time tofinalize a journal article, a chapter even.

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Duncan McCargo

Now I've just myself started to look at some British Foreign Office documents aboutSouth East Asia and particularly about the Philippines in the 60s and 70s, which I'mfinding absolutely fascinating. But some of these documents are 341 pages long, andthere's an immense amount of detail buried in them. And if you're working in multiplelanguages, I guess it's even more complicated. So what kind of additional insights doyou get from the Japanese language sources or the Taiwanese sources that give youa different perspective on American power from the perspective that you would getfrom the obvious place those U.S. National Archives of Maryland?

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Oh well, in terms of a military side, both Japan and Taiwan, they were very happy toreceive, America's help because they had to be supported by the US. But in terms ofinternational grow and fishing rights, or some of your issues from the documents inTaiwan and Japan, we can find that the decision makers in Taipei and in Tokyoattempted to strike a balance between its relations with the US and its benefits.

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Duncan McCargo

OK, well, I know you've just won a prize in Taiwan for translating a book into Chinese.Can you tell us more about that? That's been an exciting development that we'vehad at NIAS in the past couple of weeks.

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Well, I hate o talk about this topic cause I spent two years to translate and toproofread this book, and I hate this books now. No, I'm kidding. This book isProfessor Barack Kushner of University of Cambridge "Men to Devils, Devils to Men".This book argues that the Japanese war crime (inaudible) was one of a power pursuitgame in post-war East Asia and the KMT, the CCP and the U.S. they wanted to showtheir abilities to command everything legally in post-war East Asia, particularly for theKMT and the CCP. If kind of a show the Japanese war crime trial was kind of a showto proof that, OK, we, I mean KMT or CCP, we are able to join the moderninternational society by using the international law to deal with complex issuesrelated to the Japanese war criminals. argument of this book. But the translation isnot an easy task because first of all, the language itself, sometimes when youtranslate this language from another language, sometimes it doesn't make any sense.So you have to write, you have to speak, and you have to ask the author to check.And my colleague and I would try to maintain at least a 70 or 80 % I mean, originalcontent. But sometimes we will rewrite. But we will ask the author that it's OK foryou, becuase Professor Kushner his Chinese, it's very good. And we ask him, OK, doyou think part, it's OK for you? And if he said yes, we will use this part and he said noand we will retranslate it again. Yes.

00:18:32

Duncan McCargo

Yes. Though I know myself from having had a number of my own books translatedwhat a torturous process this can become. And I must admit one one of my bookswas translated to Thai. I kind of gave up on going through my because I just didn'thave two months to spend, you know, agonizing over these translations. It's really anincredible piece of work. So this has been the best translation of 2021 by the OpenBook Award in Taiwan. So that's fantastic news. Thank you. So you have recentlymoved to NIAS, to ADI, to Copenhagen, to the Nordic region. How are you findingthat transition?

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Well this transition. It's very exciting, I have to say, because atmosphere and thetradition of Copenhagen and Cambridge are totally different. Oh yes, yeah, of course.And my colleagues, including you, they focus on politics over in Southeast Asiastudies. They are quite new for me. I tried to create a dialogue between my researchand their research and to have the new approach, particularly international historyand international politics, because people always say that they are differentapproaches. I agree, but maybe you have to try to cross these two differentapproaches and to create a new dialogue. So the next year, we will have a workshopfor Nordic scholars and the East Asia scholars, too. And the topics are aboutinternational history and international politics. And then we try to create such aplatform for everyone and to create a dialogue and to find further cooperation in thefollowing years.

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Duncan McCargo

Great. Yeah. No, you have clearly a lot of energy and a lot of ideas for exciting thingsto do. I believe you're currently trying to wrap up a book manuscript. Yeah. Is that thebook of your Ph.D?

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Kuan-Jen Chen

Yeah. Yeah, it is based on my Ph.D. Yes, I put new primary resources and newarguments and tried to clearly demonstrate a picture of a post war maritime EastAsia. And also, you know, shift attention for this book to an East Asian perspective, abit, otherwise. Some people say, Are you your topic is too America, is U.S. centric. Inthis book, I also want to show first why maritime space matters, and the second, whyU.S. matters. And the third way we should care about East Asia.

00:21:09

Duncan McCargo

Absolutely, yes. This is all very exciting. You've hinted something about your futureprojects because you said you were going to do some work that related to theVietnam conflict and to the South China Seas. Could you say a bit more about what'scoming up once you have finished this present book and moved on to yet moreactivities?

00:21:29

Kuan-Jen Chen

Duncan, this question is too harsh. To push to complete my book as soon aspossible,

00:21:35

Duncan McCargo

There's no hurry, but earlier on, you beat me to it by telling us, giving us a glimpse ofwhat you might be doing next. And of course, nobody really knows what they'regoing to do next until they've started doing it at my experience, because it usually isan evolutionary process. But at least if you could tell us some of the questions thatare exciting you when you wake up in the morning these days, what what are thequestions that you're thinking about when you ride your bike through the streets ofCopenhagen or take the dreaded metro line?

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Kuan-Jen Chen

I try to finish this book next year, maybe in January or February, but I won't move tomy second book project. I mean, the project about the Vietnam War, South ChinaSea and the US immediately, because I want to take a break by doing other twosmall projects. It's a journal article projects. The first one, the title is "Strange(inaudible) Chiang Kai shek and his imaginary anti-communist alliance between 1949and the 1960s and another general project it's related to our contemporary society isabout the collective security system. So the project is entitled "The Most DistantPartnership". Britain at first ended a pathetic security between 1949 and the 1954.Because now you know, the US, the UK and Australia, they have their own collectivesecurity system, according to my preliminary research in the past. The UK was,excluded (?) by the collective security systems in the Pacific. Yeah, and I want toknow why and how and how the UK maintained its position in this area, becauseeven many people argued that the US was the only one in the post-war period todominate the Pacific and Asia. But we could not know what role t he UK playedbecause the UK sat here for a long time and it had its own tradition in this area.

00:23:43

Duncan McCargo

Indeed, and as I mentioned, I've been going through a lot of documents recentlythat's brought me into a better understanding of the confrontation between Indonesiaand Malaysia and (?) and all of the extraordinary politics that was taking place aroundthat time that the British took an incredibly great interest. So all to be discussed. Well,thank you so much. K.J., it's been great to have a chance to talk to you on the NordicAsia podcast.

00:24:07

Kuan-Jen Chen

Thank you very much.

00:24:08

Duncan McCargo

I'm Duncan McCargo, director of NIAS, and I've been in conversation with our newAsian Dynamics Initiative and NIAS postdoctoral fellow in Asian Studies, Kuan-jenChen, about his groundbreaking work in the field of maritime East Asian cold warhistory. Thank you for joining the Nordic Asia Podcast, showcasing Nordiccollaboration in studying Asia.

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Duncan McCargo

You have been listening to the Nordic Asia podcast