Bio

Dr. Charles Kraus, an historian of 20th century Asia, is the Senior Program Associate for the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program.

At the Center, Kraus is responsible for developing and implementing the History and Public Program's research agendas related to Asia's history since 1945, including document acquisitions, publications, conferences, grants, and other activities.

The editor of the Chinese Foreign Policy Database, Kraus has also written and published extensively in peer reviewed journals. His research covers topics as diverse as population resettlement and migration in Asia, China's Cold War-era foreign relations, decolonization, North Korea's formative state-building years, ethnic and national identity in China, and the history of Coca-Cola in the PRC. Kraus' dissertation, completed in 2017 at The George Washington University, investigates the resettlement of over 120,000 urban Chinese youth to Xinjiang in the 1960s. 

Fluent in Chinese, Kraus has conducted research in over 25 archives on Mainland China, as well as at dozens of others in the United States, Burma, Korea, and Japan.

Education
Ph.D. in History, The George Washington University, 2017.
M.A. in History, The George Washington University, 2014.
B.A. in History, Hiram College, 2010.

Major Publications

Peer Reviewed Publications
"‘The Danger is Two-Fold’: Decolonisation and Cold War in Anti-Communist Asia, 1955–7," International History Review 39, no. 2 (April 2017), 256-273, doi: 10.1080/07075332.2016.1199441.

"Researching the History of the People's Republic of China," CWIHP Working Paper 79 (April 2016).

"American Orientalism in Korea," Journal of American-East Asian Relations 22, no. 2 (2015): 147-165.

"Bridging East Asia’s Revolutions: The Overseas Chinese in North Korea, 1945-1950," The Journal of Northeast Asian History 11, no. 2 (Winter 2014): 39-70.

“To Die On the Steppe: Sino-Soviet-American Relations and the Cold War in Chinese Central Asia, 1944-1952,” Cold War History 14, no. 3 (August 2014): 293-313, doi: 10.1080/14682745.2013.871262.

“Nation, Ethnicity, and the Post-Manchukuo Order in the Sino-Korean Border Region,” co-authored with Adam Cathcart, in Key Papers on Korea: Essays Celebrating 25 Years of the Centre of Korean Studies, SOAS, University of London, edited by Andrew David Jackson (Boston: Global Oriental, 2013), 79-99, doi: 10.1163/9789004265226_007.

“A Border Region ‘Exuded with Militant Friendship’: Provincial Narratives of China’s Participation in the First Indochina War, 1949-1954,” Cold War History 12, no. 3 (August 2012): 495-514, doi: 10.1080/14682745.2011.627919.

“The Bonds of Brotherhood: New Evidence on Sino-North Korean Exchanges, 1950-1954,” co-authored with Adam Cathcart, Journal of Cold War Studies 13, no. 3 (Summer 2011): 27-51, doi: 10.1162/JCWS_a_00141.

“Creating a Soviet ‘Semi-Colony’? Sino-Soviet Cooperation and Its Demise in Xinjiang, 1949-1955,” Chinese Historical Review 17, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 129-165, doi: 10.1179/tcr.2010.17.2.129.

“Peripheral Influence: The Sinuiju Student Incident of 1945 and the Impact of Soviet Occupation in North Korea,” co-authored with Adam Cathcart, Journal of Korean Studies 13 (2008): 1-28, doi: 10.1353/jks.2008.0002.

“Internationalist Culture in North Korea, 1945-1950,” co-authored with Adam Cathcart, The Review of Korean Studies 11, no. 3 (September 2008): 123-148.

Other Academic Publications
"Kim Gu on Reunification and War, 1948," NKIDP e-Dossier no. 19 (June 23, 2015).

Sino-European Relations during the Cold War and the Rise of a Multipolar World, co-edited with Enrico Fardella and Christian F. Ostermann (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2015).

“More Friends than Foes: Sino-Japanese Relations in 1984,” co-authored with Sergey Radchenko and Yutaka Kanda, CWIHP e-Dossier no. 48 (March 27, 2014).

Review of “Staking Claims to China’s Borderland: Oil, Ores and State-building in Xinjiang Province, 1893-1964,” by Judd Creighton Kinzley, Dissertation Reviews (October 22, 2013).

Liang Zhi, "North Korean Apprentices in China and the Nature of Socialist Exchanges in the 1950s," NKIDP e-Dossier no. 16 (September 2014).

You Lan, "Caught in the Split: Chinese Students in the Soviet Union, 1960-1965," CWIHP e-Dossier no. 52 (August 2014).

Fan Hongwei, "Reassessing China-Myanmar Relations during the Cold War," CWIHP e-Dossier no. 49 (May 2014).

Resources