Dr. Sibing He
Guest Professor at the Center for the Study of Overseas Chinese Culture, Huaqiao University
Paper Title:
Russell and Company in Shanghai, 1843-1891: U.S. Trade and Diplomacy in Treaty Port China.
Sibing He received his Ph.D. in U.S. diplomatic history from Miami University, Ohio. His research interests are in the areas of Sino-US relations and overseas Chinese studies and his recent publications include a coauthored book on the history of the Philippine Chinese and articles on early Sino-American relations. He is currently serving as Guest Professor at the Center for the Study of Overseas Chinese Culture, Huaqiao University.
Abstracts:
In his introduction to America’s China Trade in Historical Perspective, John K. Fairbank speculates that one “may find it hard to discover a material substructure adequate to account for the superstructure of religious, cultural, and strategic interests that dominated the Chinese-American relationship.” Guided by this presumption, some scholars have attempted to demonstrate "how comparatively little of a material nature was ever at stake" in the course of American approach to China. America's China trade, they propound, has been only tangentially important to the overall economy of both nations. These studies, however, are by no means conclusive on the subject. More concrete case studies of the trade, as Fairbank admits, are still needed in order to vindicate the conjecture that the American approach to China was "a phenomenon of the mind and spirit more than of the pocketbook." Michael H. Hunt also stresses the need for case studies of prominent American firms in China, such as Russell and Company.