Date: 4 September 2025 (Thursday)
Time: 4-5:30pm
Venue: LI-6376, 6/F, Li Dak Sum Yip Yio Chin Academic Building, City University of Hong Kong
Speaker: Prof. Hans van de Ven (University of Cambridge)
Language: English

Limited seats available on a first-come first served basis. Please complete the online registration form on or before 26 August 2025. Successful registrants will receive a confirmation email not later than 1 September 2025.

Registration closed 

Abstract

In December 1941, Japan launched Strike South, its invasion of the Southeast Asia of which the attack on Pearl Harbor was one, but only one, element. This lecture places Strike South in a global context. It examines changes in American political and strategic thinking and Japan’s reasons for undertaking an operation which it knew was a gamble which might well fail. It will include a discussion of the Dutch decision to join the US in embargoing oil exports, in its case from the Netherlands East Indies to Japan. Strike South might well not have happened had the Dutch decided to stay aloof. The lecture concludes with an examination of the long-term historical significance of Strike South in ending European imperialism in Southeast Asia.

Biography

Prof. van de Ven is an authority on the history of 19th and 20th century China. He holds several positions at the University of Cambridge, where he is Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor of Modern Chinese History, Fellow and Director in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at St Catharine's College and previously served as Chair of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. He studied sinology at Leiden University. Then, after studying with Susan Naquin at the University of Pennsylvania for a period of time, he moved to Harvard University, where he studied modern Chinese history under Philip Kuhn and received his PhD. He specializes in the studies of Chinese Communist Party before 1949, the history of warfare in modern China from the Taiping Rebellion to the Civil War between the Communists and the Nationalists, and the history of Chinese globalization in the 1850-1950 period with a focus on Chinese Maritime Customs. He has published a number of monographs and numerous articles on these topics, of which some are published in Chinese in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

All are welcome!

Inquiry：
Department of Chinese and History
Tel.：3442 2054
Email：cah@cityu.edu.hk