Americans look to China with fascination and fear, unsure whether the rising Asian power is friend or foe but certain it will play a crucial role in America’s future. This is nothing new, says Gordon Chang, History Professor at Stanford University and author of “Fateful Ties”. For centuries, Americans have been convinced of China’s importance to their own national destiny. “Fateful Ties” draws on literature, art, biography, popular culture and politics to trace America’s long and varied preoccupation with China.

Evening Presentation by Prof. GORDON CHANG, Oliver H. Palmer Professor in Humanities, Professor of History, Stanford University & Author
Drinks reception 6:30pm,
Presentation 7:00pm,
Close 8:00pm

Americans look to China with fascination and fear, unsure whether the rising Asian power is friend or foe but certain it will play a crucial role in America’s future. This is nothing new, says Gordon Chang, History Professor at Stanford University and author of “Fateful Ties”. For centuries, Americans have been convinced of China’s importance to their own national destiny. “Fateful Ties” draws on literature, art, biography, popular culture and politics to trace America’s long and varied preoccupation with China. China has held a special place in the American imagination from colonial times, when Jamestown settlers pursued a passage to the Pacific and Asia. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Americans plied a profitable trade in Chinese wares, sought Chinese laborers to build the West, and prized China’s art and decor. China was revered for its ancient culture but also drew Christian missionaries intent on saving souls in a heathen land. Its vast markets beckoned expansionists, even as its migrants were seen as a “yellow peril” that prompted the earliest immigration restrictions. A staunch ally during World War II, China was a dangerous adversary in the Cold War that followed. In the post-Mao era, Americans again embraced China as a land of inexhaustible opportunity, playing a central role in its economic rise. Through portraits of entrepreneurs, missionaries, academics, artists, diplomats and activists, Prof. Chang demonstrates how ideas about China have long been embedded in America’s conception of itself and its own fate.

Gordon H. Chang is the Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities and Professor in the Department of History at Stanford University. Prof. Chang is affiliated with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, the American Studies Program, International Relations Program, and is Director of the Center for East Asian Studies. Prof. Chang has written and edited many books and essays on Sino-American and Asian American history including Friends and Enemies: The United States, China and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972 and most recently Fateful Ties: A History of America’s Preoccupation with China. He is also co-directing the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project that is recovering and interpreting the history of Chinese workers who toiled on the first transcontinental rail line across the United States. Prof. Chang holds degrees from Princeton and Stanford Universities.

TICKETS
$200 Asia Society members/ Stanford Club of HK/ Friends of HKETO; $300 Non-members

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