Background
Born in London of Anglo-Chinese parentage, Yee Wah was educated at the Arts Educational School, Tring Park and Ecole Actif Bilingue in Paris. In 1981 she graduated with a BA in Pacific and Oriental Studies at the University of Victoria, British Columbia and went on to pursue a varied career in business and textiles, based first in Canada and then in the UK. In 2002 Yee Wah completed her doctorate on Chinese-Soviet relations at Lincoln; she was supervised by Professor Hans van de Ven, Director of Oriental Studies, St. Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge. Yee Wah started teaching at the University of Lincoln in 2002. She is a Senior Lecturer in Politics in the School of Social Sciences.
Research
My field of research is China’s Modern History with an emphasis on Chinese foreign relations during the Republic (1911-1949). I am particularly interested in the history and development of inter-allied diplomacy (at the ambassadorial level) during the Second World War. I first started post-graduate research in 1995, after discovering the diaries and photographic materials of my grandfather, Ambassador Fu Bingchang. Fu had been a career official and diplomat in Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government and he was also a keen amateur photographer. He wrote over 20 diaries, ranging in time from 1932 to 1965, and amassed a collection of over 3,800 photographs snapped from the early days of the Republic up to 1950. My thesis, entitled ‘Wartime Diplomacy at the Chinese Embassy in Moscow’, was based on Fu Bingchang’s diaries and is an exploration of Chinese-Soviet relations from the perspective of Fu, who was the last ambassador Chiang Kai-shek sent to Soviet Russia.
Teaching
I teach across a wide range of subject areas in the Politics and International Relations Department. I lecture on China, Russia, Comparative Politics, Nationalism, Political Theory, Political Thought, the Environment and Social Research.
Other Work
I am an honorary member and keen supporter of the Nanjing Museum for the Site of Chinese Modern History (Zongtongfu) in Nanjing, China. In May 2009, two separate exhibitions opened at the museum. The first exhibition was a celebration of ‘Fu Bingchang as Photographer’, and the show is displayed on a semi-permanent basis in the museum’s foyer. The second exhibition is a permanent one, and consists of a room dedicated to Fu Bingchang’s life and achievements. It is situated in the newly refurbished building of the former Legislative Yuan, a building that Fu would have known well, as a long-time member of the Legislative Yuan. The museum is one of China’s most prestigious institutions, receiving over three million visitors each year.
For more information, access: http://www.njztf.cn
Publications
Foo, Y.W. ‘Three Revolutionaries of the Chinese Republic: Ho Kai, Sun Yatsen and Fu Bingchang’ (三位民国时期的革命者： 何启，孙中山与傅秉常)in Studies on Republican China, Social Sciences Academic Press (China). Forthcoming in 2012.
Foo, Y.W. (2011)
‘L’oriente guarda a Occidente. Un fotografo cinese in Europa: Fu Bingchang’
(East looks West. A Chinese photographer in Europe: Fu Bingchang’, in Mecarelli,
M., Flamminni, A., Storia Della Fotografia in Cina: Le opere di artisti
cinesi e occidentali. Novalogos/Ortica, Aprilia, Italy.
Foo, Y.W. (2011)
‘Fu Bingchang’s Wartime Diaries: Chiang Kai-shek's Last Ambassador to Moscow',
Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK.
Foo, Y.W. ‘From Chiang Kai-shek to Mao: Fu Bingchang, Chiang Kai-shek and Yalta’, Cold War History, Vol. 9, No. 3, August 2009. Print ISSN: 1468-2745
Foo, Y.W., Taylor, G., Long, J., Saunders, G. (2009) ‘Active Learning and Active Participation in Higher Education’ in C-Sap Monograph No. 10, Active Learning and Active Citizenship: Theoretical Contexts, edited by McManus, M., and Taylor, G., The Higher Education Academy Network, University of Birmingham, ISBN 1 902191 38 2.
Foo, Y.W. (2008) ‘Revisiting the Far Eastern Agreement: Ambassador Fu Bingchang’s Record of Events’雅尔塔远东问题协议重探 ――以傅秉常为中心的讨论 in the Journal of Nanjing University, Number 45, ISSN 1007-7278: 79-88.
Foo, Y.W. (December 2007) 蒋介石最后一任驻苏大使傅秉常在苏联的日子 'Fu Bingchang: Chiang Kai-shek’s last Ambassador to Soviet Russia: Purpose and Management, Republican Archives, Issue 4, pp: 55-60. ISSN 1000-4491. Translated by Li Yuming.
Foo, Y.W. ‘A Chinese Photographer’, in Bickers, R., (editor), Ladds, C., Carstairs, J., Foo, Y.W., (2007) ‘Picturing China, 1870-1950: Photographs from British Collections’, Chinese Maritime Customs Project Occasional Papers No. 1., Iles (Colour Print) Ltd, Bristol, ISSN 1755-6643.
Foo, Y.W. (2007) ‘Fu Bingchang: Life and Photography’ in ‘The Historical Photographs of China Project ’, Access: http://chp.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr Collection editor, Robert Bickers.
Note:
Images from this site, including those taken by Fu Bingchang, are being used by
scholars, students and the wider public all over the world. Administered by
Robert Bickers and his team at the University of Bristol, exhibitions
of ‘Picturing China’ have been held at the School of Oriental and African
Studies (2007), the University of Durham (2008), the University of Bath (2008),
the University of Bristol (2009),
the Grant Bradley Gallery in
Bristol (2009), the University of
Navarra, Spain (2009), the Casa Asia in Barcelona - equivalent of the
Asia Society in New York (2010), and the Hong Kong Museum of History (2010) in
their special exhibition ‘Modern Metropolis: Material Culture of Shanghai and
Hong Kong’.
In 2010,
images from the website were featured by a documentary production company in
Australia who needed some pre-1950 family snapshots as props for a documentary
about the battle of Kapyong. Also in 2010, an exhibition was put on at the Sun
Yatsen Museum in Hong Kong entitled, ‘Revolution once more: Dr. Sun Yatsen from
Xing Zhong Hui to the governments in Guangzhou’. That show has since been
transported to the Sun Yatsen Nanyang Memorial Hall in Singapore, where it will
stay until the end of 2011. A small booklet for free distribution to public
libraries and cultural institutions to increase people’s understanding of modern
Chinese history was published in this connection.
In Italy, academics
at La Sapienza University of Rome are currently exploring a new module for their
History of Art students that will compare Fu Bingchang’s style of photography
with photographs in China taken during the Maoist period.
Conference Papers
(三位民国时期的革命者： 何启，孙中山与傅秉常) Three Revolutionaries: Ho Kai, Sun Yatsen, and Fu Bingchang’. The University of Nanjing’s ‘Centenary Anniversary of the 1911 Revolution’ conference in Nanjing, China, 15-20 October 2011.
Fu Bingchang, Chiang Kaishek’s Last Ambassador to Moscow: Gathering Intelligence and the Far Eastern Agreement concluded at Yalta 1944-45’, presented in September 2007 at ‘China, Italy and the World. Republican Foreign Relations, 1912-1949’, an international conference co-organised by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and sponsored by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange British Inter-university China Centre).
Grants
Conference funding, the University of Nanjing, October 2011, £1,900.
Social and Moral Responsibility and the Environment: An examination of student perspectives (with G Taylor, J Cook and L Walton), funded by CSAP and Active Learning Active Citizenship (FDTL 5), Jan 2006 – June 2008, £9,014.
Pre-entry guidance for politics students (with H Bochel), FDTL, Jan 2006 – June 2008, £14,389.
Contact Information
My goal is to share, publish and disseminate Fu Bingchang’s collection of materials, therefore I welcome all enquiries. The following topic areas are well-covered in the Fu collection: Xinjiang Province under Sheng Shicai, the 1943 Moscow Declaration and China’s position in the United Nations Organisation, the 1945 Sino-Soviet Treaty, Manchuria 1946-1948, Canadian-Chinese wartime diplomacy, US-Chinese wartime diplomacy, transit negotiations and military supplies during WW2, Taiwan from 1957 to 1965, Chinese-Soviet relations from January 1943 to April 1949, Chinese photographers during the Republic.
Enquiries to Dr. Yee Wah Foo, ywfoo@lincoln.ac.uk, telephone 01522 886792.