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Victor Cheng
Victor Cheng was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies, Lund University between November 2006 and August 2008. He received a PhD in history from the University of Melbourne in 2002. His research interests include contemporary Chinese history, strategic culture, military decision making and the diffusion of military technology and ideas.
Current research project:
“Strategic Disharmony” and “Grand Strategic Vacuum”: Challenging the
Traditional Perceptions on China’s Strategic Behaviour
China’s
national defence preferences have long posed an issue for Western
observers and scholars. For generations, the Chinese attitude
historically to warfare and violence has been considered markedly
pacifistic, and its concomitant military strategies primarily defensive.
However, in his book titled Cultural Realism, Harvard’s Alastair Iain
Johnston pronounces the surprising conclusion that Chinese strategic
decision-making was actually dominated by a culture of hard Realpolitik
and did not differ from the Western Realpolitik tradition in any
fundamental aspect. The perception of a belligerent China has since
attracted much attention and debates in the field. Given the
contemporary relevance of the subject vis-a-vis the PRC’s recent
military build-up against the West, this project proposes to take a
critical stance vis-a-vis the previous scholarship and to test this by
carrying out further research on the subject.
Recent publications
Articles:
2005
“Imagining
China’s Madrid in Manchuria: The Communist Military Strategy at the
Onset of the Chinese Civil War, 1945-46.” Modern China,
Vol. 31 No. 1, Jan. 2005, pp. 72-114.
2002
“Ershi shiji jiushi niandai de zhanlüe wenhua”
(English title: The Theories of Strategic Culture in the 1990s:
Retrospection & Preview), Co-author with Professor S. L. Tsang, Jinan
daxue xuebao, zexue shehui kexue ban (Journal of Jinan University,
Philosophy & Social Science Edition), 24: 4 (July 2002): 1-12. The
research of this article was supported by a grant from the Research
Grant Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project
no. CUHK4311/00H).
Book reviews:
2006
Book review on Mao:
the Unknown Story, by Jung Chang & Jon Halliday, Arena
Magazine: The Australian Magazine of Left Political, Social and
Cultural Commentary, No. 80, pp. 54-55. Visit: http://www.arena.org.au/
(new window)
Book
review (PDF 693Kb - new window)
2005
Book review on Political Leaders of Modern
China: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by Edwin Pak-wah Leung; and Historical
Dictionary of the Chinese Civil War, by Edwin Pak-wah Leung, The
China Journal, No. 54, pp. 204-05.
Book review on China’s Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall
and the Long March, by Andrew Scobell, The China Journal, No.
53, pp. 245-46.
Book review on Modern Chinese Warfare,
1795-1989, by Bruce A. Elleman, The China Journal, No. 53,
pp. 238-40.
Book review on Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, edited by Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein and Michael A. McDevitt, The China Journal, No. 53, pp. 246-48.
2003
Book review on A Military History of China edited
by David A. Graff and Robin Higham, The China Journal, No. 50,
pp. 226-28.
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Last modified 16 Mar 2012