Education

M.A. (en route), History, University of Virginia, 2022
M.A. (with Honors), International Economics and International Affairs, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), 2020
B.A., History, Peking (Beijing) University, 2018

Biography

Hao Chen is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Virginia. Hao specializes in Cold War international history with a regional focus on East Asia. His specific research interests include China’s ethnic-frontier affairs and foreign relations, the Cold War in the Global South, and North Korea studies. His current project studies the ethnopolitical history of the China-North Korea borderland Yanbian in the mid and late 20th century to examine the interaction between China’s ethnic-frontier affairs and its international relations in the post-WWII and early Cold War periods. He has conducted archival research in dozens of repositories in China, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. He was a visiting fellow at the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies at Seoul National University, the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul, Korea, and the Institute for Modern History at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. Hao likes soccer, outdoor sports, and photography. He is also a world traveler in his spare time.

Publications

Hao Chen, “Internationalistischer Nationalismus: Die Entstehung eines »dritten Korea« im chinesisch-nordkoreanischen Grenzgebiet (1945–1952)” [Internationalist Nationalism: Making a “Third Korea” in the Borderland between China and North Korea (1945-1952)], Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung [Yearbook for Historical Research on Communism], Vol. 2026 (forthcoming).

Hao Chen, Review of Suharto’s Cold War: Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the World, in Diane Labrosse ed., “H-Diplo Roundtable XXVI-35,” May 5, 2025, https://networks.h-net.org/group/discussions/20067293/h-diplo-roundtable-xxvi-35-fibiger-suhartos-cold-war, 6-11.

Hao Chen, Review of The CIA and Third Force Movements in China during the Early Cold War: The Great American Dream, Journal of Military History, Vol. 85, No. 2 (April 2021).

Hao Chen, “‘One Arch Enemy’ or ‘Two-Fold Danger’: The Failed Alliance in Non-Communist Asia,” SAIS China Studies Review, Vol. 6 (Spring 2020).

Hao Chen, “China’s ‘Fragmented Authoritarianism 2.0’ in the Social Media Age,” SAIS Perspectives, Vol. 2019.

Awards and Honors

Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant (American Historical Association) 2023

East and Inner Asia Council Small Grants (Association for Asian Studies) 2023

Dumas Malone Graduate Research Fellowship (University of Virginia) 2023

MOU-IFES North Korean Studies Fellowship (Ministry of Unification, Republic of Korea) 2023

Graduate Global Research Fellowship (University of Virginia) 2022-2023

East Asia Center Travel Grants (University of Virginia) 2022-2023

Raven Fellowship (University of Virginia Raven Society) 2022

Classes Taught

Modern China (HIEA 2031)

Russian History Since 1917 (HIEU 2162)

China and the U.S. (HIEA 3323)