Nathanael Lai
I was born and raised in Hong Kong, and I came to study for an MPhil in World History at Cambridge following a BA in History and English at the University of Hong Kong. I am now a PhD candidate supervised by Dr Rachel Leow.
My PhD research interrogates the substance of Cold War influence operations by uncovering modes and moments of agency exercised by historical actors from across East and Southeast Asia. Drawing on archival research in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei, my thesis centres on a range of ethnic Chinese living outside of China—from athletes, capitalists, and journalists, to educators, publishers, and writers—who circumvented the battle for their hearts and minds fought between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China since 1949. It also probes how they weathered late-colonial and nationalist politics as well as US psychological warfare operations in Asia from the 1950s to the 1970s. By calibrating influence offensives of this era as experienced on the ground, the thesis calls into question the capacity of Cold War hegemons, late-colonial authorities, and nationalist leaders to shape political allegiances as well as subjectivities. It demonstrates how historical actors navigated the interstices of opposing influences with artistry and creativity, deploying astute strategies and an acute awareness of political currents while living their lives in volatile post-war Asia. I am grateful to the Gates Cambridge Trust for supporting my research.
My past research projects centred on the history of protest and dissent in colonial Hong Kong, not least its connections to Southeast Asia, which I still strive to explore and develop academically and otherwise.
I co-convened Cambridge's World History Workshop in the 2023-2024 academic year.
Histories of the Cold War, transnational and modern China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, contentious politics, etc.
For 2024-25 I supervise for the Part 1B paper T13 'Empires in Word History: Regions and Themes' (module on maritime East Asia). Previously I supervised for the Part 1A Outline paper O11 ‘The Twentieth-Century World’ (2023-2024) and led the HAP (Historical Argument and Practice) seminar on ‘Transnational Histories’.
- 'Play, Ploy, and Politics: Sportive Circuits in Cold War East and Southeast Asia, c. 1949-65', 'Asia in Migration' Graduate Seminar Series, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, September 2024.
- 'The "Stars" Aligned? Journalism and Gender in Cold War East and Southeast Asia, c. 1949-1963', PhD Workshop, London School of Economics and Political Science, June 2024.
- ‘Researching the Cold War and Chinese Overseas in Thailand and Beyond’, Sharing Session on ‘Navigating Overseas Archives and Libraries’, World History Workshop, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, February 2024.
- ‘Loans, Textbooks, and the Cold War in 1950s Southeast Asia and Hong Kong’, Research Seminar, Department of History, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, April 2023; ‘Innovating Chinese Business History’ Workshop, Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong, October 2023; Early Career Scholars Workshop, Hong Kong History Centre, University of Bristol, October 2023; Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Seattle, March 2024.
- ‘Chinese Banking and Everyday Practices in 1950s Southeast Asia’, Postgraduate Research Seminar, Department of History, University of Hong Kong, November 2022.
- ‘Hong Kong's 1956 Disturbances and the Transnational Campaign of Triad Leader Zhang Xunyi in Southeast Asia’, Society for Hong Kong Studies Annual Conference, June 2022.
- ‘Entangled Resistance in Colonial Hong Kong and Singapore, c. 1956’, World History Workshop, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, February 2022.
Contact
Tags & Themes
Hughes Hall, Cambridge, CB1 2EW
Key publications
'On Documenting Life as Politics', The Scholar, May 2023.