Zheng Wang

Dr. Zheng Wang (汪铮) is the Director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS) and a Professor in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. He is a Global Fellow at the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Carnegie Fellow at the International Security Program of New America, and a member of the National Committee on United States-China Relations (NCUSCR).

Dr. Wang is the author of the book Never Forget National Humiliation: Historic Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (Columbia University Press, 2012). This book received the International Studies Association’s Yale H. Ferguson Award for “book of the year” in 2013. Its Japanese version was published in Japan in 2014. His new book, Memory Politics, Identity and Conflict: Historical Memory as a Variable (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) aims to contribute to methodological discussions concerning the use of identity as a variable to explain political actions.

(Excerpts from the Preface, Never Forget National Humiliation:)

I grew up in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province in southwestern China. When I was a boy, China had ended its decades-long policy of being a closed society and had begun the process of reform and opening up. I remember the first time I saw Westerners. My friends and I were playing on the street when they passed by. We were so mesmerized by the presence of these strange new people that we could not help but follow them as they explored our city. Soon, we were joined by a large gathering of Chinese children and adults eventually blocking their path. For these Westerners, China was no doubt as much a mystery as they were to us. Certainly, none of us that day, Western or Chinese, could have anticipated what China would look like thirty years later.

Today, I am a professor teaching international relations at a university not far from New York City. In my university, there are more than ten professors just like me, raised in China and having received PhDs in the United States. There are even more students coming from China to attend school here. When my wife and I were buying birthday gifts for our young daughter, we found that most of the toys were labeled "Made in China." No longer separated from the rest of the world, China has become the world's factory. Never before in history have China, the United States, and the rest of the world become so closely linked together as they are today.

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When compared to thirty years ago, however, there is one thing that has not fundamentally changed; for most Westerners, China is still a mystery. Being a professor of international relations, my students often ask me about China's future, but I cannot always answer their questions; there are too many variables, too many perspectives, and too much uncertainty.

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From a broad perspective, what I try to do in this book is to help people to better understand the Chinese people, their inner world, their motivations, and their intentions.