Research Projects

My research focuses on the state formation and state-building processes of the modern Chinese states during the early half of the twentieth century. I look at a range of important factors, especially local-level government-organized non-governmental organizations and levels of conflict, to study how they contributed to the state-building efforts of different political entities in China at that time, including the Chinese Communist Party, the Kuomintang, and the Japanese Puppet Governments. I analyze these factors through a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, relying mostly on historical and archival data. Building on this project, I am also interested in how the aforementioned local-level organizations transformed and contributed to the state-building processes in the PRC period.