Biography

Yang Huei joined SUTD in 2012. To date, he 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 (RVN & DRV) during the 1970s. Presently, he has contributed to academic  journals, inter alia, Modern Asian Studies, Asian Affairs, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory, and Small Wars & Insurgencies.  At the request of various journal editors, he has also reviewed a dozen of monographs and edited volumes.  His other mini projects include a manuscript on a certain Hainanese sojourner, Chow Kwai For (d. 1907), in the Transvaal Colony. He is also interested in the career of Tong King-sing (1832-1892) and his ties with the Jardine Matheson Company. 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.