Skip to content

Biographical Sketch

Dr. TSUI Kai Hin Brian completed his graduate training at Columbia University after receiving a B.A. from the University of Hong Kong. Before joining PolyU, Dr. Tsui served at the Australian National University, where he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian Centre on China in the World.

A historian by training, Dr. Tsui is interested in the intersection between revolutionary politics and mobilization of cultures on both the left and the right in China’s twentieth century. His first book, China’s Conservative Revolution: The Quest for a New Order, 1927-1949 (click here for author Q&A), studies mass politics under the Guomindang, the dilemmas confronting Chinese liberal intellectuals caught between an authoritarian state and a supposedly untamable populace, and the Nationalist Party’s appeal to Pan-Asianism as a strategy to garner international support. His current research focuses on the advent of “New China” as an Asia-wide event, zeroing in on how the advent of the People’s Republic was interpreted by Indian nationalists and Asian Christians in the early 1950s.

Academic Qualifications

• Ph.D. (2013) in East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
• M.Phil. (2009) East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
• M.A. (2007) East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
• B.A. (2005), History, The University of Hong Kong

Present Position

• Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Culture, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. (July, 2019 - )

Positions Held

• Assistant Professor, Department of Chinese Culture, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. (2014.8-2019.6)
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Australian Centre on China in the World, The Australian National University (2013.1-2014.8)

Specialization and Research Interests

• Twentieth-century Chinese history
• Revolutionary politics in China and Asia
• Modern China-India connections

Fellowships and Grants

• General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, HKSAR Government, 2018-19, awarded for a three-year project entitled “Embracing ‘New China’: An Intellectual History of China-India Friendship, 1950-1955”
• Early Career Scheme, Research Grants Council, HKSAR Government, 2015-16, awarded for a two-year project entitled “Turncoats: Political Conversion and Anti-Communism in Nationalist China, 1927-1949”
• Research Grant, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, 2014, awarded for a three-year project entitled “Beyond Pan-Asianism: China-India Connections, 1911-1949”
• Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Doctoral Fellowship, 2012-2013
• Bernadotte Schmitt Grant, American Historical Association, 2007, awarded for a project entitled “Time Reckonings, Factory Management, and Labor Protests in Nationalist Guangzhou”

Publications

Books

• China’s Conservative Revolution: The Quest for a New Order, 1927–1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018
• (co-edited with Tansen Sen) Beyond Pan-Asianism: Connecting China and India, 1840s–1960s. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020

Journal Articles

• “Reforming bodies and minds: anticommunism and transforming political enemies in Nationalist China,” positions: asia critique, vol. 28, no. 4 (2020): 789–814
• “Bridging ‘New China’ and postcolonial India: Indian narratives of the Chinese revolution,” Cultural Studies, vol. 34, no. 2 (2020): 295–316
• “The mutations of pan-Asianism: Zhang Junmai’s Cold War,” Twentieth-Century China, vol. 42, no. 2 (2017): 176–97
• “Decolonization and revolution: debating Gandhism in Republican China,” Modern China: An International Journal of History and Social Science, vol. 41, no. 1 (2015): 59–89
• “Clock time, national space, and the limits of Guomindang anti-imperialism,” positions: asia critique, vol.21, no.4 (2013): 921–45
• “The plea for Asia – Tan Yunshan, pan-Asianism and Sino-Indian relations,” China Report: A Journal of East Asian Studies, vol.46, no.4 (2010): 353–70

Book Chapters

• “When culture meets state diplomacy: the case of Cheena Bhavana,” in Sen and Tsui eds., Beyond Pan-Asianism, 236–65
• (co-authored with Tansen Sen) “Introduction,” in Sen and Tsui eds., Beyond Pan-Asianism, 1–25
• “Coming to terms with the People’s Republic of China: Jawaharlal Nehru in the early 1950s,” in Young-chan Kim ed., China-India Relations: Geo-political Competition, Economic Cooperation, Cultural Exchange and Business Ties. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020, 15–30
• “20 shiji er sanshi niandai Hu Yuzhi dui Yindu fan zhimin yundong renzhi diebian chutan” 20世紀二三十年代胡愈之對印度反殖民運動認知迭變初探 [Changes in Hu Yuzhi’s understanding of the Indian anticolonial movement in the 1920s and 30s], in Tansen Sen 沈丹森 and Sun Yinggang 孫英剛 eds., Zhong-Yin guanxi yanjiu de shiye yu qianjing 中印關係研究的視野與前景 [Horizons and Futures of Studies in China-India Relations]. Shanghai 上海: Fudan University Press 復旦大學出版社, 2016, 230–41
• “Class politics and the entrenchment of the party-state in modern China,” in Lion Koenig and Bidisha Chaudhuri eds., Politics of the Other in India and China: Western Concepts in Non-Western Contexts. London: Routledge, 2016, 115–26

Research Projects

• General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, H.K.S.A.R., 2018–19, awarded for a three-year project entitled “Embracing ‘New China’: An Intellectual History of China-India Friendship, 1950–1955”
• Early Career Scheme, Research Grants Council, H.K.S.A.R., 2015–16, awarded for a two-year project entitled “Turncoats: Political Conversion and Anti-Communism in Nationalist China, 1927–1949”
• Research Grant, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, 2014, awarded for a three-year project entitled “Beyond Pan-Asianism: China-India Connections, 1911–1949”
• Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Doctoral Fellowship, 2012–2013
• Bernadotte Schmitt Grant, American Historical Association, 2007, awarded for a project entitled “Time Reckonings, Factory Management, and Labor Protests in Nationalist Guangzhou”

Conference Presentation

• “Cold War Taiwan and the refashioning of Chinese anticommunism,” the 134^th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, New York, 3–6 January 2020
• “The Guomindang’s transwar anticommunism: ‘people’s livelihood’ in 1950s Taiwan,” the 11^th International Convention of Asia Scholars, Leiden, 15–19 July 2019
• “Rethinking leftwing politics in 1950s Hong Kong,” International Conference on “The Question of Locality”: Hong Kong Literature and Culture,” School of Chinese, The University of Hong Kong, 30 May–1 June 2019
• “Bridging ‘New China’ and postcolonial India: the 1951 Indian goodwill mission,” International Conference on “Hopes and Fears in a Divided World: East and Southeast Asia during the Cold War,” Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, 3–4 May 2019
• “Bridging ‘New China’ and postcolonial India: Indian reflections on the Chinese revolution,” the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Denver, 21–24 March 2019
• “Christian ecumenism meets the Chinese revolution,” the 12^th International ACS “Crossroads in Cultural Studies” Conference, Shanghai, 12–15 August 2018
• “The Chinese revolution and Asia’s decolonization according to K. M. Panikkar,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Conference, Seoul, 28–30 July 2017
• “‘Vanguard of Asian awakening’: K. M. Panikkar’s portrayal of ‘New China’ in the 1950s,” AAS-in-Asia Conference, Seoul, 24–27 June 2017
• “Political conversion in anticipation of global war: reforming former communists in Nationalist China, 1927-1937,” the Axis Alliance in Global Perspective International Conference, University of Konstanz and European Institute, Columbia University, Konstanz, 7–10 June 2017
• “Popularizing anti-communism in Nationalist China,” the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Seattle, 1 March–3 April 2016
• “Tan Yunshan and Nationalist China’s India diplomacy,” International Conference on Modern China-India Relations, Academia Historica, Taipei, 28 August 2015
• “The impossibility of pan-Asianism: Zhang Junmai’s Cold War,” AAS-in-Asia Conference, Taipei, 22–24 June 2015
• “The Guomindang’s conservative revolution: Ideological conversion and anti-communism in China,” the 18^th Asian Studies Conference Japan, Tokyo, 21–22 June 2014
• “Bandits, malcontents and sophisticates: vernacular anti-communism in Nationalist China,” the 13^th Chinese Studies Association of Australia Biennial Conference, Hobart, 9–11 July 2013
• “Liberal humanism and wartime spiritual mobilization: Zhu Guangqian as Guomindang propagandist,” the Association of Asian Studies-International Convention of Asia Scholars Joint Conference, Honolulu, 31 March–3 April 2011
• “Imagining modern India in Republican China,” International Conference on Emerging China-India Cross-Cultural Interactions and their Implications for Asia, The University of Hong Kong, 3 September 2010
• “Timing the sun at eight or nine: clock time, national space, and the limits of Guomindang nationalism,” the 11^th Chinese Studies Association of Australia Biennial Conference, Sydney, 9–11 July 2009
• “Time in competing visions of revolution in Republican China,” the 3^rd Asian Studies Association of Hong Kong Annual Conference, Hong Kong, 11–12 January 2008

Invited Lectures

• “‘New China’ as method: the Chinese revolution and a decolonizing British Empire,” Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, 9 January 2020
• “When the Chinese revolution turned conservative: a forgotten episode of the twentieth century,” NYU Shanghai Center for Global Asia Lecture Series, NYU Shanghai, 11 March 2019
• “The discursive foundation of Sino-Indian friendship in the 1950s” 1950年代中印友好的論述基礎, workshop on Experiences and Representations of the Pacific Century 太平洋世紀的經驗與表述, Institute of Literature 文學研究所, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 中國社會科學院, Beijing 北京, 12 November 2018
• “When culture meets state diplomacy: the case of Cheena Bhavana,” workshop on Pan-Asianism and India-China Relations, 1900-1947, NYU Shanghai, 8–9 December 2017
• “The politics of culture: Cheena Bhavana, converging nationalisms and wartime diplomacy,” Center for Global Asia Annual Conference: Asia and Intra-Asian Connections, NYU Shanghai, 22–24 August 2016
• “From enthusiasm to skepticism: Hu Yuzhi’s views on the Indian freedom movement,” workshop on Conceptualizing and Re-examining India-China Connections, Fudan University, Shanghai, 4–5 November 2013
• “Huaqiao activism and China-India interactions: the case of Tan Yunshan,” workshop on Visions, Individuals and Networks: India-China Connections, 1900-1960, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 23–24 July 2012
• “The plea for Asia: Tan Yunshan, pan-Asianism and Sino-Indian relations,” the 2^nd China-South Asia International Cultural Forum, New Delhi, 4–6 December 2009

Book Reviews

• Review of Realistic Revolution: Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics after 1989, Els Von Dongen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, Modern Chinese Languages and Cultures, August 2020, https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/tsui/
• Review of Nation-Empire: Ideology and Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan and Its Colonies, Sayaka Chatani, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2018, Social Science Japan Journal, vol. 23, no. 2 (2020): 332–34
• Review of Twentieth-Century Colonialism and China: Localities, the Everyday, and the World, Bryna Goodman and David S. G. Goodman eds., London: Routledge, 2012, The China Journal, no.71 (January 2014): 288–90
• Review of New Narratives of Urban Space in Republican Chinese Cities: Emerging Social, Legal, and Governance Orders, Billy K. L. So and Madeleine Zelin eds., Leiden: Brill, 2013, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, vol.15, no.2 (2013): 146–48