Jeffrey Wasserstrom

He recalls leaving BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is a campus of the University of California system; the University of California was founded in 1868 through a merger of two institutions and moved to Berkeley, California, in 1873.Open the full entry in August 1986 for a year of doctoral research in Shanghai on the city’s pre-1949 student movements, witnessing the student demonstrations of late 1986 and early 1987; he did not return to mainland China until 1996.⁠[1]

In 1987 he received a dissertation fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies’ China Studies Program for research on Shanghai students and political protest, 1919–1949, and in 1990 a postdoctoral fellowship from the same program.⁠[2]

In 1991 Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry Press published his 428-page Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai.⁠[3]

He co-founded the China Beat blog in 2008, which ran until 2012, and edited the Journal of Asian Studies from 2008 to 2018.⁠[4]

In 2009 Routledge published his Global Shanghai, 1850–2010: A History in Fragments, which uses seven years set 25 years apart, from 1850 to 2000, to explore how international forces and ideas shaped Shanghai, looking ahead to the 2010 Expo.⁠[5]

In 2010 Oxford UniversityUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university in Oxford, England, where teaching existed in some form by 1096; it describes itself as the oldest university in the English-speaking world and is organised as a federal system of the university and dozens of self-governing colleges.Open the full entry Press published his China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know.⁠[6]

In July 2012, while chairing UC Irvine’s Department of History, he was named a Chancellor’s Professor; that year he also published Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land.⁠[7]

He was educated at UC Santa Cruz (BA), HarvardHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry (MA) and Berkeley (PhD), and also studied at the University of London and Fudan University; before returning to his native California he taught first at the University of Kentucky and then for about fifteen years at Indiana University, where he for a time directed the East Asian Studies Center.⁠[8]

In 2016 Penguin published his Eight Juxtapositions: China through Imperfect Analogies from Mark Twain to Manchukuo.⁠[9]

In June 2016 Oxford University Press published The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China, which he edited; it begins around 1550 in the late Ming, with chapters by different specialists and a few hundred images, maps and diagrams.⁠[10]

On February 11, 2020, Columbia Global Reports published his Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink, in which he argues that the “high degree of autonomy” granted to Hong Kong at the 1997 handover is being eroded by Beijing; the book includes interviews with Joshua Wong and Chris Patten, Hong Kong’s last British governor.⁠[11]

Another review found the book clear and accessible but noted that its ending offered little bold sense of where events might be headed.⁠[12]

He was to be a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College, University of London, in spring 2020, a post delayed by COVID-19; he has also served as a consultant on two prize-winning Long Bow Film Group documentaries and was interviewed on camera for the film Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower.⁠[13]

In 2022 The Oxford History of Modern China, which he edited, was published.⁠[14]

In September 2024 he wrote that he had not been to the PRC since two trips to Hong Kong in 2019 and had no plans to go, though he had not been banned; he argued that keeping lines of communication open and minimizing misunderstanding remains worthwhile even when U.S.-China relations are tense.⁠[1]

On April 24, 2025, he appeared on episode 466 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong, Confucius, Tiananmen Square, censorship, the trade war, Taiwan, the Hong Kong protests and the future of China.⁠[15]

On June 10, 2025, Columbia Global Reports published his 104-page The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia’s Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing, which examines transnational links among youth pro-democracy movements in Thailand, Hong Kong and Burma through activists including Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, Agnes Chow and Ye Myint Win (Nickey Diamond).⁠[16]

He recalls that talk of a “Milk Tea Alliance” began appearing online in early 2020 and that Bangkok protesters later that year adopted tactics and anthems from Hong Kong, which felt to him like a baton being passed in a pro-democracy relay; he first met Netiwit in person in Bangkok in 2024.⁠[17]

As of October 2026 he is a Distinguished Professor of History at UC Irvine, directs its Humanities Honors Program and holds courtesy appointments in Law and Literary Journalism; The Milk Tea Alliance has appeared in Taiwan in Chinese translation after its US release.⁠[14]

University of Kentucky: Official website: https://www.uky.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]

Indiana University: Official website: https://www.indiana.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]

University of California, Irvine: Official website: https://uci.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[7]