Starting August 1, 2024, Dr. Peng will be an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Research interests: 

• Cold War History
• Modern Chinese Intellectual History
• History of Technology Transfer
• European-Chinese Relations in the late 20th century

Current research project:

Making a New World? China and the end of the European Cold War, 1979-1991.

This project will shed light on the untold story of China’s attempt to shape the emerging American-European-led liberal international order by being an active player in the last stage of the European Cold War, when China, through historical reconciliations, technology transfer, economic and public diplomacy, attempted to make Chinese-European relations a major pillar of the post-Cold War multi-polar world order. Those actions not only changed the outcome of the European Cold War itself, but also raised the inevitable question of whether or not China could remain a potential leader of the liberal global world order without being a liberal state itself.

Publications:

“Reform the System or Reform within the System? Intellectual Traditions and the Long Market Debates in Mainland China and Taiwan,” in János Mátyás Kovács edited, Reforming Communism, Refusing Capitalism. Evolution of Market Concepts under Communism, (Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming in 2024).

“A Gentleman's Understanding: British, French, and German dual-use Technology transfer to China and America’s Dilemma: 1978-1981,” Diplomacy & Statecraft, March 2021, Issue 32, No. 1.

Reviews:

Kazushi Minami, “Re-examining the end of Mao’s revolution: China’s changing statecraft and Sino-American relations, 1973–1978.” Cold War History 16:4 (2016): 359-375. H-Diplo, No. 698, 16 May 2017. http://tiny.cc/AR698

Victor Petrov, Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age Behind the Iron Curtain (MIT Press, 2023), East Central Europe [Upcoming, 2024]