Wang Gungwu

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Wang Gungwu (Simplified Chinese: 王赓武; pinyin: Wáng Gēngwǔ) (born October 9, 1930)^[1] is an academic who has studied and written about the Chinese diaspora. He was born in Surabaya, Indonesia, and grew up in Ipoh, Malaysia. He studied history in the University of Malaya, Singapore, where he received both his Bachelor and Masters degrees. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of London (1957) for his thesis on The structure of power in North China during the Five Dynasties. He is a former teacher at the University of Malaya (in both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur). He left Malaysia in 1968 when Ungku Aziz was promoted to the position of Vice Chancellor of University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, because he felt that the government was unfairly favouring the bumiputra. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from 1986 to 1995.

[edit] Positions held and books written

Currently Wang is Director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore^[2], where he also serves as a Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Wang is also a Distinguished Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and an Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University, Canberra. He is also holding a director position of International Advisory Council besides chairing the Academic Board at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia, and is on the Board of Governors of the Institute of Policy Studies

Wang is an active writer who has written The Chineseness of China (1991), China and the Chinese Overseas (1991), Community and Nation: China, Southeast Asia and Australia (1992), a new edition of Nanhai Trade: The early history of Chinese trade in the South China Sea (1998), China and Southeast Asia: Myths, Threats and Culture (1999), The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy (2000), and Joining the Modern World: Inside and Outside China (2000). He has objected to the use of the word diaspora to describe the migration of Chinese from China, because it is inaccurate and has been used to perpetuate fears of a "Chinese threat".^[3]