Skip to main content Start main content

Academic Staff

a22_2050x500
Dr. TSUI Kai Hin Brian
PolyU Scholars Hub

Dr. TSUI Kai Hin Brian

Associate Professor and Postgraduate Programme Leader

Modern Chinese history

Education and Academic Qualifications

  • Ph.D., M.Phil., M.A. East Asian Languages and Culture, Columbia University, U.S.A.
  • B.A. (Hons.), The University of Hong Kong

Academic and Professional Experience

  • Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Culture, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. (2019.7–)
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Chinese Culture, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. (2014.8–2019.6)
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Australian Centre on China in the World, The Australian National University (2013.1–2014.8)

Research Interests

  • Political and cultural history of China since the late Qing
  • Chinese revolutions and their inter-Asia relations
  • Rightwing politics

Research Output

  • China’s Conservative Revolution: The Quest for a New Order, 1927–1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018
  • (co-edited with Tansen Sen) Beyond Pan-Asianism: Connecting China and India, 1840s–1960s. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2021
  • “Interrogating Hong Kong’s Cold War settlement: a Christian perspective,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, vol. 24, no. 6 (2023): 1055–74
  • “Introduction: localizing Cold War experiences in Hong Kong,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, vol. 24, no. 6 (2023): 1007–13
  • “Early encounters: introduction to the First Special Collection on the Nehru Papers,” China and Asia: A Journal in Historical Studies, vol. 3, no. 2 (2022): 185–87
  • “Reforming bodies and minds: anticommunism and transforming political enemies in Nationalist China,” positions: asia critique, vol. 28, no. 4 (2020): 789–814
  • “Bridging ‘New China’ and postcolonial India: Indian narratives of the Chinese revolution,” Cultural Studies, vol. 34, no. 2 (2020): 295–316
  • “The mutations of pan-Asianism: Zhang Junmai’s Cold War,” Twentieth-Century China, vol. 42, no. 2 (2017): 176–97
  • “Decolonization and revolution: debating Gandhism in Republican China,” Modern China: An International Journal of History and Social Science, vol. 41, no. 1 (2015): 59–89
  • “Clock time, national space, and the limits of Guomindang anti-imperialism,” positions: asia critique, vol.21, no.4 (2013): 921–45
  • “The plea for Asia – Tan Yunshan, pan-Asianism and Sino-Indian relations,” China Report: A Journal of East Asian Studies, vol.46, no.4 (2010): 353–70
  • “Hewlett Johnson’s China: moral critique of capitalism,” in Ruiwen Chen ed., Glimpsing the Southern Hills: Festschrift in Honor of Professor Philip L. Wickeri. Hong Kong: Christian Study Centre on Chinese Religion and Culture, forthcoming.
  • “Resetting China’s conservative revolution: ‘people’s livelihood’ in 1950s Taiwan,” in Reto Hofmann and Max Ward eds., Transwar Asia: Ideology, Practices and Institutions. London: Bloomsbury, 2022, 125–46.
  • “When culture meets state diplomacy: the case of Cheena Bhavana,” in Sen and Tsui eds., Beyond Pan-Asianism, 236–65
  • (co-authored with Tansen Sen) “Introduction,” in Sen and Tsui eds., Beyond Pan-Asianism, 1–25
  • “Coming to terms with the People’s Republic of China: Jawaharlal Nehru in the early 1950s,” in Young-chan Kim ed., China-India Relations: Geo-political Competition, Economic Cooperation, Cultural Exchange and Business Ties. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020, 15–30
  • “20 shiji er sanshi niandai Hu Yuzhi dui Yindu fan zhimin yundong renzhi diebian chutan” 20世紀二三十年代胡愈之對印度反殖民運動認知迭變初探 [Changes in Hu Yuzhi’s understanding of the Indian anticolonial movement in the 1920s and 30s], in Tansen Sen 沈丹森 and Sun Yinggang 孫英剛 eds., Zhong-Yin guanxi yanjiu de shiye yu qianjing 中印關係研究的視野與前景 [Horizons and Futures of Studies in China-India Relations]. Shanghai 上海: Fudan University Press 復旦大學出版社, 2016, 230–41
  • “Class politics and the entrenchment of the party-state in modern China,” in Lion Koenig and Bidisha Chaudhuri eds., Politics of the Other in India and China: Western Concepts in Non-Western Contexts. London: Routledge, 2016, 115–26
  • General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, H.K.S.A.R., 2021-22, awarded for a two-year project entitled “‘Red’ Christianity and ‘New China’ in the 1950s: the case of Hewlett Johnson”
  • General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, H.K.S.A.R., 2018–19, awarded for a three-year project entitled “Embracing ‘New China’: An Intellectual History of China-India Friendship, 1950–1955”
  • Early Career Scheme, Research Grants Council, H.K.S.A.R., 2015–16, awarded for a two-year project entitled “Turncoats: Political Conversion and Anti-Communism in Nationalist China, 1927–1949”
  • Research Grant, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, 2014, awarded for a three-year project entitled “Beyond Pan-Asianism: China-India Connections, 1911–1949”
  • Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Doctoral Fellowship, 2012–2013
  • Bernadotte Schmitt Grant, American Historical Association, 2007, awarded for a project entitled “Time Reckonings, Factory Management, and Labor Protests in Nationalist Guangzhou”
  • “Hewlett Johnson: Chinese revolution as a resource of social critique,” AAS-in-Asia Conference, Daegu, 24–27 June 2023
  • (with Joseph Gregory Yu) “The heart of ‘Berlin of the East’: Victoria Park, Queen’s College and Causeway Bay in Cold War Hong Kong,” Society for Hong Kong Studies Annual Conference 2023, Hong Kong, 16–17 June 2023
  • “Decolonial visions in Hong Kong and China – worldmaking in the 1950s,” the 13th ACS International ACS “Crossroads in Cultural Studies” Conference, online, 17–19 November 2022
  • “Cold War Taiwan and the refashioning of Chinese anticommunism,” the 134th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, New York, 3–6 January 2020
  • “The Guomindang’s transwar anticommunism: ‘people’s livelihood’ in 1950s Taiwan,” the 11th International Convention of Asia Scholars, Leiden, 15–19 July 2019
  • “Rethinking leftwing politics in 1950s Hong Kong,” International Conference on “The Question of Locality”: Hong Kong Literature and Culture,” School of Chinese, The University of Hong Kong, 30 May–1 June 2019
  • “Bridging ‘New China’ and postcolonial India: the 1951 Indian goodwill mission,” International Conference on “Hopes and Fears in a Divided World: East and Southeast Asia during the Cold War,” Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong, 3–4 May 2019
  • “Bridging ‘New China’ and postcolonial India: Indian reflections on the Chinese revolution,” the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Denver, 21–24 March 2019
  • “Christian ecumenism meets the Chinese revolution,” the 12th International ACS “Crossroads in Cultural Studies” Conference, Shanghai, 12–15 August 2018
  • “The Chinese revolution and Asia’s decolonization according to K. M. Panikkar,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Conference, Seoul, 28–30 July 2017
  • “‘Vanguard of Asian awakening’: K. M. Panikkar’s portrayal of ‘New China’ in the 1950s,” AAS-in-Asia Conference, Seoul, 24–27 June 2017
  • “Political conversion in anticipation of global war: reforming former communists in Nationalist China, 1927-1937,” the Axis Alliance in Global Perspective International Conference, University of Konstanz and European Institute, Columbia University, Konstanz, 7–10 June 2017
  • “Popularizing anti-communism in Nationalist China,” the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Seattle, 1 March–3 April 2016
  • “Tan Yunshan and Nationalist China’s India diplomacy,” International Conference on Modern China-India Relations, Academia Historica, Taipei, 28 August 2015
  • “The impossibility of pan-Asianism: Zhang Junmai’s Cold War,” AAS-in-Asia Conference, Taipei, 22–24 June 2015
  • “The Guomindang’s conservative revolution: Ideological conversion and anti-communism in China,” the 18th Asian Studies Conference Japan, Tokyo, 21–22 June 2014
  • “Bandits, malcontents and sophisticates: vernacular anti-communism in Nationalist China,” the 13th Chinese Studies Association of Australia Biennial Conference, Hobart, 9–11 July 2013
  • “Liberal humanism and wartime spiritual mobilization: Zhu Guangqian as Guomindang propagandist,” the Association of Asian Studies-International Convention of Asia Scholars Joint Conference, Honolulu, 31 March–3 April 2011
  • “Imagining modern India in Republican China,” International Conference on Emerging China-India Cross-Cultural Interactions and their Implications for Asia, The University of Hong Kong, 3 September 2010
  • “Timing the sun at eight or nine: clock time, national space, and the limits of Guomindang nationalism,” the 11th Chinese Studies Association of Australia Biennial Conference, Sydney, 9–11 July 2009
  • “Time in competing visions of revolution in Republican China,” the 3rd Asian Studies Association of Hong Kong Annual Conference, Hong Kong, 11–12 January 2008
  • “Condensed tour around ‘New China’: British Priest Hewlett Johnson’s reflections on his trip to China” 「新中國」精華遊:英國牧師約翰遜訪華印象, New Asia Institute of Advanced Chinese Studies 新亞研究所, Hong Kong, 13 May 2023
  • Invited talk under the theme “From the material to the ideational: state ideals in time and space” 從物到理:時間與空間脈絡下的國家理念, Rethinking the Ideals and Afterlives of the Republican Revolution: An International Discussion Series 重新思考民國革命的理念與再生:國際系列論壇, Department of Chinese Literature 中國文學系, Sun Yat-sen University 中山大學, Kaohsiung 高雄, 29 August 2022
  • Invited talk under the theme “Old country made anew: the idea of Republic of China” 舊邦新造:中華民國的理念, Thinking the Republic of China: An International Symposium 《思考中華民國》國際論壇 , Department of Chinese Literature 中國文學系, Sun Yat-sen University 中山大學, Kaohsiung 高雄, 24 August 2021
  • “‘New China’ as method: the Chinese revolution and a decolonizing British Empire,” Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, 9 January 2020
  • “When the Chinese revolution turned conservative: a forgotten episode of the twentieth century,” NYU Shanghai Center for Global Asia Lecture Series, NYU Shanghai, 11 March 2019
  • “The discursive foundation of Sino-Indian friendship in the 1950s” 1950年代中印友好的論述基礎, workshop on Experiences and Representations of the Pacific Century 太平洋世紀的經驗與表述, Institute of Literature 文學研究所, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 中國社會科學院, Beijing 北京, 12 November 2018
  • “When culture meets state diplomacy: the case of Cheena Bhavana,” workshop on Pan-Asianism and India-China Relations, 1900-1947, NYU Shanghai, 8–9 December 2017
  • “The politics of culture: Cheena Bhavana, converging nationalisms and wartime diplomacy,” Center for Global Asia Annual Conference: Asia and Intra-Asian Connections, NYU Shanghai, 22–24 August 2016
  • “From enthusiasm to skepticism: Hu Yuzhi’s views on the Indian freedom movement,” workshop on Conceptualizing and Re-examining India-China Connections, Fudan University, Shanghai, 4–5 November 2013
  • “Huaqiao activism and China-India interactions: the case of Tan Yunshan,” workshop on Visions, Individuals and Networks: India-China Connections, 1900-1960, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 23–24 July 2012
  • “The plea for Asia: Tan Yunshan, pan-Asianism and Sino-Indian relations,” the 2nd China-South Asia International Cultural Forum, New Delhi, 4–6 December 2009

Book reviews

  • Review of Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912–1949, Yajun Mo, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2021, Journal of Tourism History, vol. 14, no. 1 (2022): 120–22
  • Review of Realistic Revolution: Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics after 1989, Els Von Dongen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, Modern Chinese Languages and Cultures, August 2020, https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/tsui/
  • Review of Nation-Empire: Ideology and Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan and Its Colonies, Sayaka Chatani, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2018, Social Science Japan Journal, vol. 23, no. 2 (2020): 332–34
  • Review of Twentieth-Century Colonialism and China: Localities, the Everyday, and the World, Bryna Goodman and David S. G. Goodman eds., London: Routledge, 2012, The China Journal, no.71 (January 2014): 288–90
  • Review of New Narratives of Urban Space in Republican Chinese Cities: Emerging Social, Legal, and Governance Orders, Billy K. L. So and Madeleine Zelin eds., Leiden: Brill, 2013, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, vol.15, no.2 (2013): 146–48

Esteem Measures

Journal Editorship

  • Associate Editor, China and Asia: A Journal in Historical Studies

Consultancy and Service to the Profession or the Public

  • Member, The Archives and History Advisory Committee, Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui
  • Member, Incorporated Management Committee, Queen’s College Old Boys’ Association Secondary School

dr-tsui-kai-hin-brian-publication-chinas-conservative-revolution

China’s Conservative Revolution: The Quest for a New Order, 1927–1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018

dr-tsui-kai-hin-brian-publication-beyond-pan-asianism

(co-edited with Tansen Sen) Beyond Pan-Asianism: Connecting China and India, 1840s–1960s. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2021

Your browser is not the latest version. If you continue to browse our website, Some pages may not function properly.

You are recommended to upgrade to a newer version or switch to a different browser. A list of the web browsers that we support can be found here