Yinan He (Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is a political scientist specialized in East Asian politics and international relations. Her scholarship covers topics of politics of historical memory and reconciliation, East Asian international security, Chinese and Japanese foreign policy, and national identity mobilization and nationalism in East Asia. Her current research explores the impact of national identity politics on China’s foreign relations since the late 19th century to the present.
Yinan He
Associate Professor
610.758.3387
yih413@lehigh.edu
0009 - Maginnes Hall
Education:
Ph.D. in Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004;
M.A. in International Politics, Fudan University (Shanghai), 1995;
B.A. in International Politics, Peking University (Beijing), 1992
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Research Areas
Research Statement
Biography
Professor Yinan He (何忆南) completed her undergraduate and master’s education in China before moving to the U.S., where she earned her Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of The Search for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese and German-Polish Relations since WWII (Cambridge University Press). Professor He is a Public Intellectual Program Fellow of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. She served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Princeton China and the World Program and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, and a predoctoral fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies of Harvard University. Her research has also been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States Institute of Peace, the MacArthur Foundation, and Japanese Government Mombusho Scholarship, among others. Before joining Lehigh University in 2014, she had taught international relations at Seton Hall University.
Book
Articles
“China’s Cultural Revolution and Mao’s External Threat Inflation: Crushing Soviet-Style Capitalist Restoration,1966–1969,” Journal of Cold War Studies 26, No.1 (Winter 2024): 120-155.
“The Japan Differential? Chinese Policy to Japan during the Trump Era,” Asia Policy 17, No. 2 (April 2022): 99-123.
“Domestic Troubles, National Identity Discourse, and China’s Attitude toward the West, 2003-2012,” Nations and Nationalism 24, No. 3 (July 2018): 741-766.
“Identity Politics and Foreign Policy: Taiwan’s Relations with China and Japan, 1895-2012,” Political Science Quarterly 129, No. 3 (Fall 2014): 469-500.
“Forty Years in Paradox: Post-normalisation Sino-Japanese Relations,” China Perspectives No. 4 (2013): 7-16.
“Comparing Postwar (West) German-Polish and Sino-Japanese Reconciliation: A Bridge Too Far?” Europe-Asia Studies 63, No. 7 (September 2011): 1157-1194.
“Competing Narratives, Identity Politics, and Cross-Taiwan Strait Relations,” Asian Perspective 34, No. 4 (December 2010): 45-83.
“Ripe for Cooperation or Rivalry? Commerce, Realpolitik, and War Memory in Contemporary Sino-Japanese Relations,” Asian Security 4, No. 2 (May 2008): 162-197.
“Remembering and Forgetting the War: Elite Mythmaking, Mass Reaction, and Sino-Japanese Relations, 1950 -2006,” History & Memory 19, No. 2 (Fall 2007): 43-74. Preprinted in Jun-Hyeok Kwak & Melissa Nobles eds., Inherited Responsibility and Historical Reconciliation in East Asia (London & New York: Routledge, 2013).
“History, Chinese Nationalism and the Emerging Sino-Japanese Conflict,” Journal of Contemporary China 16, No. 50 (February 2007): 1-24. Reprinted in Suisheng Zhao ed., Construction of Chinese Nationalism in the Early 21st Century (London & New York: Routledge, 2014).
Book Chapters
“Linking Internal and External Enemies: Impact of National Identity on Chinese Democratization and Foreign Relations,” in Gilbert Rozman ed., Democratization, National Identity and Foreign Policy in Asia (Routledge, 2021).
“Theory of Victory, Expectation Adjustment, and China’s Mutual Reassurance with Japan,” in Shao Binhong ed. China under Xi Jinping: Its Economic Challenges and Foreign Policy Initiatives (Brill, 2015).
“IR Theory and Bilateral Relations among China, Japan, and South Korea in the 2000s,” in Gilbert Rozman ed., Misunderstanding Asia: International Relations Theory and Asian Studies over Half a Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
“War, Myths, and National Identity Formation: Chinese Attitudes toward Japan,” in Gérard Bouchard ed. National Myths: Constructed Pasts, Contested Presents (Routledge, 2013).
“The Past and Present of Sino-Japanese Relations: Revisiting the Roles of the US Factor and Historical Legacy,” in Caroline Rose & Victor Teo eds. The United States between China and Japan (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013).
“National Mythmaking and the Problem of History in Sino-Japanese Relations,” Lam Peng Er (ed.), Japan’s Foreign Relations with China: Facing a Rising Power (Routledge, 2006).
Teaching
IR/Asia 061 East Asian International Relations
IR/Asia 063 US-China Relations
IR/Asia 066 Japan in a Changing World
IR 236 Causes of War
IR/ASIA 364 Chinese Foreign Policy