Guoqi Xu holds the Wen Chao Chen Chair of History and East Asian Affairs at Kalamazoo College. He is an expert on the international history of modern China and Chinese foreign relations. He has written widely in both China and the United States about Chinese history and foreign policy, among other topics.
As a Radcliffe fellow, Xu will finish a book using materials from Britain, Canada, China, France, and the United States to examine the role of the 140,000 largely illiterate Chinese laborers who crossed borders during World War I. He will address questions about what happened to the laborers, both abroad and once back in China, and why they were needed by Britain, France, and the United States during the Great War. Xu is also working on another book-length manuscript currently titled “The Chinese and Americans: An International and Cultural History.”
Xu has authored or coauthored four books, including China and the Great War: China’s Pursuit of a New National Identity and Internationalization (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895–2007 (Harvard University Press, 2008); Chinese editions of these two books were available in 2008. Xu was educated in both China and the United States and received his PhD in history from Harvard University. His most recent fellowships helped him to spend many months at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.