Chong Xu

PhD in history from Sciences Po Paris, since May 2021, I am junior distinguished professor in global urban history at Soochow University.

My research and teaching interests focus on global urban history and comparative history of empires especially the presence of the French Empire and the British Empire in port cities in East and Southeast Asia.

My doctoral thesis on the imperial administration of the French Concession at Shanghai from its creation in 1849 to the aftermath of the First World War, focuses on a question that has been little studied in the historiography of modern China but is nevertheless fundamental to the understanding of imperialism in the modern history of China. This thesis seeks to emphasise the idea that the circulation of the skills and knowledge-base of a modern state were an example of ‘statecraft’ in the city of Shanghai, which occupied an intermediary position between the European empires and the Chinese state.

As an extension of my doctoral thesis, my two current research projects propose to explore respectively the history of the representations of the cities in modern Jiangnan and the question of Chinese nationalism under imperial domination in Asian port cities from the Second World War to the Cold War. Currently I am also key researcher at the Centre for Chinese Urbanization Studies of Soochow University and in charge of the creation of the Centre for Global Urban History at Soochow University.