This talk analyses the events in India, China, and Indonesia between 1945 and 1949. After Japan’s surrender, the British and the Dutch (as well as the French) attempted to recover their Asian colonies. They failed because national independence movements had strengthened during the war of Japan. They exploited the absences of the USA and the USSR to exploit the opportunities to seize power and begin to form new nation states, which were however internally divided. The rise of the nation state in Asia, regardless of their internal tribulations, was one of the great transformations caused by the Second World War.

Hans van de Ven is currently the Deputy Vice Chancellor, and Professor of Modern Chinese History in the Department of East Asian Studies at Cambridge University, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Visiting Chair Professor in the Department of History at Peking University. He received his PhD from Harvard University and has taught at Cambridge University for many years. His research focuses on modern Chinese history, the history of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and the global history of World War II. His works include From Friend to Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, War and Nationalism in China: 1925–1945, and Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China. His works have won numerous awards, and he is an internationally renowned historian.

Introduction by Joanna Waley-Cohen, Provost and Affiliated Professor of History, NYU Shanghai; Julius Silver Professor of History, NYU.