HISTORY UN2580: THE HISTORY OF UNITED STATES RELATIONS WITH EAST ASIA

FALL 2017
PROFESSOR LIEN-HANG T. NGUYEN

Hamilton Hall Rm 717 Office: International Affairs Building 926

Tues & Thurs 11:40-12:55 Office Hours: Tues & Thurs 1:15-2:15
Email: ln2358@columbia.edu Office Phone: 4-0129

Teaching Assistants:
Aaron Glasserman (ag2837@columbia.edu)
James Gerien-Chen (jg3035@columbia.edu)

Course Description:
This lecture course examines the history of the relationship between the United
States and the countries of East Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries. The first half of the
course will examine the factors drove the United States to acquire territorial possessions
in Asia, to vie for a seat at the imperial table at China’s expense, and to eventual
confrontation with Japan over mastery in the Pacific from the turn of the century leading
to the Second World War. The second half of the course will explore the impact of U.S.
policy toward East Asia during the Cold War when Washington’s policy of containment,
which included nation-building, development schemes, and waging war, came up against
East Asia’s struggles for decolonization, revolution, and modernization. Not only will
this course focus on state-to-state relations, it will also address a multitude of Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese perspectives on the United States and American
culture through translated text, oral history, fiction, and memoir.
Participation in weekly discussion sections, which will begin no later than the
third week of classes, is mandatory.

Core Readings (for purchase (p) or available electronically (e) through CLIO):

1. Walter LaFeber, The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Relations throughout History (New

York: Norton, 1997) (p)
2. Warren Cohen, America’s Response to China: A History of Sino-American
Relations, 5th ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010) (e)
3. R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee, Eds., Land Without Ghosts: Chinese
Impressions of America from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993) (e)
4. Peter Duus and Kenji Hasegawa, Rediscovering America: Japanese Perspectives
on the American Century (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011) (e)
5. Excerpts from academic monographs and scholarly articles available on
CourseWorks or via CLIO (e)

Assignments (Due dates can be found in the course schedule):

First Exam 25%
Second Exam 25%
Three Short Papers (first=5%; second=10%; third=15%) 30%

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 Class Participation (lecture and section) 20%

Failure to satisfactorily complete any of the assignments may result in an F for

the course. In other words, you must complete all of the assignments to pass the
course.

The three short papers (double-spaced, 12 Times New Roman font, 1” margins)
are based on close readings of the primary sources assigned each week. Each paper will
increase in length as the semester progresses (Paper 1 will be 2-3 pages; Paper 2 will be
4-5 pages; Paper 3 will be 6-7 pages) as you become more familiar with analyzing
primary sources and contextualizing them with assistance from the secondary literature.
A prompt for each paper assignment will be posted by the TA on Courseworks.

The two exams consisting of identification and essay questions are equal in length
and will be administered in-class on Thursday, October 19 and Thursday, December 7.
Review sheets will be distributed before each exam and the TA will hold a review session
before the first exam but not the second one.

Faculty Statement on Academic Integrity:

The intellectual venture in which we are all engaged requires of faculty and
students alike the highest level of personal and academic integrity. As members of
an academic community, each one of us bears the responsibility to participate in
scholarly discourse and research in a manner characterized by intellectual honesty
and scholarly integrity.

Scholarship, by its very nature, is an iterative process, with ideas and insights
building one upon the other. Collaborative scholarship requires the study of other
scholars’ work, the free discussion of such work, and the explicit
acknowledgement of those ideas in any work that inform our own. This exchange
of ideas relies upon a mutual trust that sources, opinions, facts, and insights will
be properly noted and carefully credited.

In practical terms, this means that, as students, you must be responsible for the
full citations of others’ ideas in all of your research papers and projects; you must
be scrupulously honest when taking your examinations; you must always submit
your own work and not that of another student, scholar, or internet agent.

Any breach of this intellectual responsibility is a breach of faith with the rest of
our academic community. It undermines our shared intellectual culture, and it
cannot be tolerated. Students failing to meet these responsibilities should
anticipate being asked to leave Columbia.

The Columbia Center for New Media, Teaching, and Learning defines plagiarism
and its consequences at Columbia University:

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 ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/compass/discipline_humanities/documenting.html#
plagiarism

Disability-Related Accommodations:

In order to receive disability-related academic accommodations, students must

first be registered with Disability Services (DS). More information on the DS
registration process is available online at www.health.columbia.edu/ods. Faculty
must be notified of registered students’ accommodations before exam or other
accommodations will be provided. Students who have (or think they may have) a
disability are invited to contact Disability Services for confidential discussion at
(212) 854-2388 (Voice/TTY) or by email at disability@columbia.edu.

Schedule:
Students are expected to complete the week’s readings (assigned texts and
primary sources) prior to the first class meeting (or section, whichever comes
first) of the week.

The instructor reserves the right to modify the class schedule and/or the syllabus
if necessary.

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: Early Interactions
Week 3: Of Empires and Open Notes
Week 4: The Imperial Game
Week 5: To the Second Sino-Japanese War
Week 6: The Pacific War
Week 7: Review Session and First Exam
Week 8: Of Occupations and Revolutions
Week 9: Korean War
Week 10: Decolonization during the Cold War
Week 11: The United States and the Wars for Indochina
Week 12: Thanksgiving Break
Week 13: Of Competition and Reconciliation
Week 14: Wrapping Up and Second Exam

Week 1 - Sep 5 & 7: Introduction

Week 2 - Sep 12 & 14: Early Interactions

Core Readings:
LaFeber, 3-31.
Cohen, 1-59
Primary Sources:
Land Without Ghosts:
Xu Jiyu, George Washington and the American Political System (1848)
Zhigang, Trains and Treaties (1868)

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Zhang Deyi, Strange Customs (1868)
Li Gui, Glimpses of a Modern Society (1876)
Chen Lanbin, Travel in the Interior (1878)
Cai Jun, How to Cope with Western Dinner Parties (1881)
Rediscovering America:
Suriyama Shigeru, “On Relations among Nations” (1878)
Shiba Shiro, Strange Encounters with Beautiful Women” (1885-1887)
Inoue Enryo, “Religion in America” (1889)

****DISCUSSION SECTIONS BEGIN****

Week 3 – Sep 19 & 21: Of Empires and Open Notes
Core Readings:
LaFeber, p. 32-64.
Cohen, 60-88
Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: A Problem of Law and History, 96-126 (e)
Primary Sources:
Land Without Ghosts:
Lin Shu, Translator’s Notes to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1901)
Liang Qichao, The Power and Threat of America (1903)
Rediscovering America:
Uchimura Kanzo “First Impressions of Christendom” (1893)
Kotoku Shusui, “Letters from San Francisco (1905-1906)
Katayama Sen, “Advice on Going to American (1901)

Week 4 – Sep 26 & 28: The Imperial Game

Core Readings:
LaFeber, 65-159
Cohen, Cpt 89-114
Primary Sources:
Land Without Ghosts:
Huang Yanpei, Report of an Investigation of American Education (1915)
Hu Shi, The American Woman (1914-1918)
Tang Hualong, The Contradictory American Character (1918)
Xu Zhengkeng, “Things About America and Americans” (1918-1921)
Li Gongpu, Presidential Elections (1928)
Rediscovering America:
Noguchi Yonejiro, “My Life in California,” (1911)
Aoyama Tetsushiro, “Home Life in America” (1916)

***FIRST PAPER DUE TO TA VIA EMAIL BY SUN, OCT 1***

Week 5 – Oct 3 & 5: To the Second Sino-Japanese War

Core Readings:
LaFeber, 160-213
Cohen, 115-147
Primary Sources:

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 Land Without Ghosts:
“Gongwang”, The American Family: Individualism, Material Wealth, and Pleasure-
Seeking (1931)
Zou Toufen, Alabama: Reds and Blacks (1935)
Lin Yutang, Impressions on Reaching America (1936)
George Kao, Burlesque (1937)
Rediscovering America:
Anonymous, “The Soul of America (1921)
Shibusawa Eiichi, “On the Anti-Japanese Movement in American” (1924)
Ashida Hitoshi, “America on the Rise” (1925)
Maida Minoru, “The Characteristics and Peculiarities of the Americans (1925)
Abe Isso, “Baseball and the American Character” (1925)

Week 6 - The Pacific War: Oct 10 & 12

Core Readings:
LaFeber, 214-256
Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: A Problem of Law and History, 175-201
Primary Sources:
Land Without Ghosts:
Fei Xiaotong, The Shallowness of Cultural Tradition (1943-1944)
Xiao Qian, Some Judgments About America (1945)
Rediscovering America:
Konoe Fumimaro, “My Impressions of Washington and New York” (1934)
Kada Tetsuji, “American Perspectives on Japan, and Vice Versa” (1941)
Sawada Ken, “On the History of American Imperialism” (1941)
Muneo Matsuji, “America’s Race Problem” (1941)
Miyaki Daisuke, “Remember American Baseball” (1941)
Matsushita Masatoshi, “The American Home Front” (1942)
Nakano Goro, “The Will to Annhilate the American Enemy” (1943)
Sakanishi Shiho, “Why Do Americans Break the Law?” (1944)
Roundtable Discussion, “Grasping the Reality of the American Enemy” (1944)

Week 7: First Exam: Oct 17 & 19

Review with TA in class on Oct 17
First Exam proctored by TA in class on Oct 19

PART II

Week 8 - Of Occupations and Revolutions: Oct 24 & 26

Core Readings:
LaFeber, 257-324
Cohen, 148-194
Primary Sources:
Land Without Ghosts:
(IV. Flawed America & V. Familiar America: The View from Taiwan)
Yang Gang, Betty: A Portrait of Loneliness (1948)

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Du Hengzhi, A Day in the Country (1946-1948)
Yin Haiguang, America’s Lack of Personal Style (1954)
Yu Guangzhong, Black Ghosts (1965)
Cold War Denunciations (1949-1955)
Rediscovering America:
Home Ministry, “Illegal Behavior by American Soldiers” (1945)
Kagawa Toyohiko, “Whence The American Sense of Morality?” (1945)
Ito Michio, “Culture and the Arts in America” (1951)
Asahi shinbun, “Remembering General MacArthur” (1951)
Symposium, “What We Have Gained from America, and What We Have Lost” (1952)
Sato Tadao, “What is America to Us?” (1967)

***SECOND PAPER DUE TO TA VIA EMAIL BY SUN, OCT 29***

Week 9 – The Korean War: Oct 31 & Nov 2

Core Readings:
Cohen, 195-214
Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1996), 85-117 (e)
Primary Sources: Placed on CourseWorks
Colonel Lee Jong Kan, 33rd Reg., 26th Division, NKPA, Cpt 10 (76-85)
Lt Lee Chan Shik, 11th Co., 3rd Battalion, 5th Infantry Division, ROK Army, Cpt
19 (156-172)
Private Lee Young Ho, 3rd Battalion, Marine Corps, ROK Army, Cpt 21 (185-
198)
Lee Hyun Sook, Housewife in Seoul, Korea (transl by Lee Hong Im), Cpt 23
(206-220)

Week 10 – Decolonization during the Cold War: Nov 9

Core Readings:
LaFeber, 325-347
Chen Jian, 118-144 (e)
Primary Sources: Placed on CourseWorks: Edward G. Miller, ed., The Vietnam War: A
Documentary Reader (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2016) and David Chanoff and Doan Van
Thai, eds., ‘Vietnam’: A Portrait of its People at War (New York: I. B. Tauris Publishers,
reprinted 2001)
From Miller:
4.1 Le Duan, The Path to Revolution in the South (1956)
4.2 A Communist Party Account of the Situation in the Nam Bo Region of
South Vietnam (1961)
4.3 A Poor Farmer’s Account of the 1960 “Concerted Uprising” in My
Tho Province (1967)
4.4 Program of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (1960)
From Chanoff:
Nguyen Cong Hoan, Opposition Assembly Deputy, “Coming of Age in
the South”

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 Nguyen Thi Ty (Nguyen Cong Hoan’s wife): Hoan in Prison
Trinh Duc, Urban Organizer, Prisoner, Village Secretary: In the
Underground

Week 11 – United States and the Wars for Indochina: Nov 14 & 16
Core Readings:
LaFeber, 348-358
Cohen, 215-231
Chen Jian, 205-237 (e)
Primary Sources: Placed on CourseWorks: Selections from Miller and Chanoff
From Miller:
7.1 A South Vietnamese Account of the Battle of Ap Bac (1995)
7.2 Interrogation of a Captured NLF Fighter (1967)
7.6 A North Vietnamese soldier remembers the Bombing of North
Vietnam (1970)
7.7 Kim Phuc and the Napalm Attack on Trang Bang Village (1972)
From Chanoff:
Nguyen Cong Hoan’s Story, In Opposition
Nguyen Thi Ty (Nguyen Cong Hoan’s wife): Assemblyman’s Wife
Trinh Duc’s Story, Village Chief
Le Thi Dau (Trinh Duc’s wife): Vietcong Nurse

Week 12 – NO CLASS (Thanksgiving break)

Week 13 - Of Competition and Reconciliation: Nov 28 & 30

Core Readings:
LaFeber, 359-395
Cohen, 232-262
Primary Sources:
Land Without Ghosts:
(V. Familiar America: The View From Taiwan)
Cai Nengying, Luo Lan, and Liang Shiqiu, Eating in America (1960s-1970s)
“Jiejun,” A Family Christmas (1970)
Zhang Beihai, America, America (1986-1987)
(VI. America Rediscovered: Travelers from the People’s Republic)
Wang Ruoshui, A Glimpse of America (1978)
Xiao Qian, Working Students (1979)
Fei Xiaotang, America Revisited (1979)
Zhang Jie, I Do Not Regret Visiting New York (1982)
Liu Binyan, America, Spacious Yet Confining (1982)
Wang Yuzhong, Six Don’ts for Chinese Students in America (1986)
Li Shaomin, Private Ownership and Public Ownership (1987)
Rediscovering America:
Oda Makoto, “Americans: Between War and Peace” (1965)
Honda Katusichi, “Traveling through the Deep South” (1970)

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Kirishima Yoko, “The Lonely American” 1971)
Yoshida Ruiko, “A Proposal for Encouraging America” (1980)
Shimonura Mitsuko, “Glorious America, Where Are You?” (1980)
Saeki Shoichi, “Rediscovering America’s Dynamic Society” (1987)
Yomota Inuhiko, “Koreans in New York” (1989)
Morita Akio, “The Trouble with the American Economy” (1989)

***THIRD PAPER DUE VIA EMAIL TO TA BY SUN, DEC 3***

Week 14: Wrapping Up (Dec 5 & 7)

Core Readings:
LaFeber, 396-406
Cohen, 263-292
Second Exam proctored by TA in class on Dec 7