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Headshot of Philip Thai with red brick background

Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies; Director of Global Asian Studies

Philip Thai is a historian of Modern China and East Asia with research and teaching interests that include legal history, economic history, and diplomatic history. He is currently working on his new book tentatively titled, “In the Shadows of the Bamboo Curtain: Trade, Travel, and Trafficking across Greater China during the Cold War.” He is the author of China’s War on Smuggling: Law, Economic Life, and the Making of the Modern State, 1842-1965 (Columbia University Press and a Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, 2018) and several articles in the journals Diplomatic History, Enterprise and Society, Modern Asian Studies, and Law and History Review.

At the core of Professor Thai’s inquiries is understanding the complex interplay between law, society, and economy. His interdisciplinary work has been supported by a number of organizations, including the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, American Philosophical Society (APS), Fulbright-Hays Program, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, among others. He is also the recipient of the Business History Conference (BHC) Philip Scranton Best Article Prize.

Between his time as a graduate and undergraduate student, he spent several years as a consultant and financial analyst in the private sector. Professor Thai is currently Director of the Northeastern University Global Asian Studies Program and an Associate in Research at Harvard University Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. He was an ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Fellow, a Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS China Studies Postdoctoral Fellow, a University of Wisconsin Hurst Institute in Legal History Fellow, and the Modern China Book Review Editor for the Journal of Asian Studies.

Read Professor Thai’s Faculty Spotlight.

 

View CV

Business History Conference (BHC) Philip Scranton Best Article Prize, 2023

American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship, for residence at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 2022–23

American Philosophical Society (APS), Franklin Research Grant, 2019

Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS China Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2015–16

Books

“In the Shadows of the Bamboo Curtain: Trade, Travel, and Trafficking across Greater China during the Cold War” (manuscript in progress)

China’s War on Smuggling: Law, Economic Life, and the Making of the Modern State, 1842­–1965. Columbia University Press, Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute (2018). https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a/9780231185844

Articles and Book Chapters

“Hong Kong in the U.S.-UK War on Drugs, 1970–1980,” Diplomatic History 47:1 (2023): 19–54. https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dhac069

“A Risky Business: The Tai Ping Insurance Company and Fire Insurance in China, 1928–1937,” Enterprise and Society 21.1 (2022): 239–76. https://doi.org/10.1017/eso.2020.47

“Smuggling and Legal Pluralism on the China Coast: The Rise and Demise of the Joint Investigation Rules, 1864–1934,” in Clara Wing-chung Ho, Ricardo K. S. Mak, and Yue-him Tam, eds., Voyages, Migration, and the Maritime World: On China’s Global Historical Role: 165–85. De Gruyter (2018). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110587685

“Introduction,” in “Binding Maritime China: Control, Evasion, and Interloping” (special issue guest editor with Eugenio Menegon and Xing Hang), Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Cultural Review 7.1 (2018), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1353/ach.2018.0000

“Old Menace in New China: Coastal Smuggling, Illicit Markets, and Symbiotic Economies in the Early People’s Republic,” Modern Asian Studies 51.5 (2017): 1561–97. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X16000688

“Law, Sovereignty, and the War on Smuggling in Coastal China, 1928–1937,” Law and History Review 34.1 (2016): 75–114. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248015000668

Other Publications

“Influenza Pandemics and Global Health in the Cold War,” Northeastern University College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH) Pandemic Teaching Initiative Module (2020). https://cssh.northeastern.edu/pandemic-teaching-initiative/disease-diplomacy-and-science-in-the-cold-war-lessons-for-future-pandemics/ 

“The proven solution to pandemics President Trump continues to reject,” The Washington Post (2020). https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/19/prove-solution-pandemics-that-president-trump-continues-reject/

“Comment les droits de douane ont aidé à construire la Chine modern” (How tariffs helped build modern China), Le Grand Continent (2020). https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2020/01/16/comment-les-droits-de-douane-ont-aide-a-construire-la-chine-moderne/

“Xiandai Zhongguo jisi shi shuxie de licheng, wenti yu keneng” 现代中国缉私史书写的历程、问题与可能 (The course, problems, and possibilities of writing the history of anti-smuggling in modern China), Guangzhou Daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 广州大学学报 (社会科学版) (Journal of Guangzhou University (social science edition)) 18.6 (2019): 108–12.
http://xb-sk.gzhu.edu.cn/CN/volumn/volumn_1199.shtml

“Tariffs and Unintended Consequences: The Case of China’s War on Smuggling,” Columbia University Press Blog (2018). http://www.cupblog.org/2018/07/19/tariffs-and-unintended-consequences-the-case-of-chinas-war-on-smuggling/

“Falü, zhuquan yu Zhongguo yanhai jisi zhi zhan” 法律、主权与中国沿海的缉私之战 (Law, Sovereignty, and the War on Smuggling in Coastal China), Falü shi yiping 法律史译评 (Legal history studies) 5 (2017): 333–62.

“Overseas Chinese, Coastal Smuggling, and Legal Pluralism in the People’s Republic of China,” H-Net World Legal History Blog (2016). https://networks.h-net.org/node/16794/blog/world-legal-history-blog/142600/overseas-chinese-coastal-smuggling-and-legal

Related Schools & Departments

  • Education

    PhD, 2013, History
    Stanford University

  • Contact

  • Address

    229 Meserve Hall
    360 Huntington Avenue
    Boston, MA 01225

  • Office Hours

    Fall 2023: M 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET; W 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET or by appointment
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