Biography

Having been brought up in a family which is steeped in lore, Yang Huei decided at a point in time, one simply had to find out the truth. To date, his personal enquiry has expended beyond the confines of his familial needs, and he has transformed that impulse into a career. Yang Huei has just published his monograph, Strait Rituals: China, Taiwan, and the United States in the Taiwan Strait Crises, 1954–1958 with Hong Kong University Press (2019). He argues that the Taiwan Straits Crises could be understood as an evolution towards tacit accommodation via symbiotic ritualization. Simply put, it was a strenuous process, which a series of “lessons” was learnt over time. Ultimately, the ROC, PRC and US had learnt to uneasily accommodate each other. These exacting understandings laid the groundwork for a substantive change in the nature of Sino-American relations – from one of hostile nuclear confrontation in 1954 to one of tacit accommodation in 1958. His second book project is a biographical treatment of one former Chinese PhD student of Frédéric Joliot-Curie – Qian Sanqiang, widely acknowledged by experts as the father of China’s nuclear development. At the same time, in another undertaking, he is examining technological transfers from US and China to Vietnam during the 1970s. Presently, he has contributed to major journals, inter alia, Modern Asian Studies, Asian Affairs and Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Small Wars & Insurgencies. His other mini projects include a manuscript on a certain Hainanese sojourner, Chow Kwai For, in the Transvaal Colony. His PhD is from the National University of Singapore, and his M.A. and B.A. Dip Ed. (Hons) is from the  National Institute of Education. Before coming to SUTD, he was an editor at the Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College, as well as, having various teaching stints at local schools.