Zach Fredman Defends Dissertation, Goes on to Accept Fellowship at Nanyang Technological University
After the successful defense of his PhD dissertation on June 16, 2016, Zach Fredman has accepted a fellowship at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Of his dissertation, Fredman writes,
My dissertation, “From Allies to Occupiers: Living with the U.S. Military in Wartime China, 1941-1945,” investigates the U.S. military presence in World War II-era China, Americans’ first attempt to forge a nominally equal military alliance with a non-Western nation. Drawing on overlooked Chinese and English-language sources from archives in six countries, it recasts how we view that relationship. Other studies attribute the wartime deterioration of Chinese-American relations to the contentious relationship between Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek and U.S. General Joseph Stilwell, or to conflicting wartime and postwar strategic aims. This study, by contrast, shows how the success and failures of the alliance turned upon the actions of a far larger cast of characters: GIs and Chinese soldiers, ordinary civilians, interpreters, hostel workers, farmers, prostitutes, thieves, bandits, and smugglers. It argues that the power asymmetries between these various actors permeated all levels of Sino-American interaction, undermining the Guomindang government, stoking American feelings of superiority, exacerbating Chinese sensitivities about unequal treatment, and making these allies into adversaries even after Stilwell left China but also long before Cold War animosities solidified.