Cold War Research Articles

Navigating and Exhibiting Ambivalence: Yin Hua Artist Organization and Sino-Indonesian Relations in the 1950s to 1960s

Abstract: This paper interrogates the logic of inclusion and exclusion that foregrounds the ethnocentrism and spatial boundedness of the state project’s national identity construction and proposes critical terms of discussion that challenge the limiting nation-centric framework prevalent in the dominant modern art historiography discourse. Drawing on primary archival research, it describes accounts of Lembaga Seniman Yin Hua (Yin Hua Meishu Xiehui, 印華美術協會, Yin Hua Artist Organization), an art organization established in 1955 in Jakarta and analyzes it against the backdrop of the Sino-Indonesian diplomatic relationship during the Cold War era. By engaging with the ambivalent aesthetic and politic of Chinese Indonesian artists, this paper recognizes the active and strategic agency of Chinese Indonesians as both insiders and outsiders in China and Indonesia under the uncertain circumstances of their dual nationality status. It argues that Yin Hua ambivalently navigated between the political patronage of Indonesia and China, performed dual loyalty to Indonesian and Sino-centric art history, and exhibited multiple artistic lineages that disrupted the stabilized territory of postcolonial nation-state geographical and cultural border. Weaving exhibition history, diplomatic history, and critical ethnic studies through a thread of transnational perspective, this paper provides historical narratives that unsettle the roots of racializing logic in the political articulation of nationalism and pushes toward an epistemic shift in rethinking categories of national identity, ethnicity, and citizenship.

Changing Global Linkages: A New Cold War?

Changing Global Linkages: A New Cold War?

Tortoise Traffic

The paper examines local and global logistics involved in the transfer of animals to and from zoos in the twentieth century. The key contexts discussed here are, on the one hand, the relationship between the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (Museum of Natural History) and Berlin Zoo, and on the other hand, trade in and the market of exotic animals, a market that both exceeds and constitutes the institutions of the museum and the zoo. Taking the accidental death of a giant tortoise in the zoo in 1969 as its starting point, the paper studies the movement of animals, dead and alive. It traces the acquisition history of two new Galápagos giant tortoises by following the animals’ trajectory from Ecuador to West Berlin during the Cold War. At the same time, it reconstructs the itineraries of the dead animals’ remains through different natural history institutions, leading into the shared history of trade and traffic between zoos and natural history museums and into the political geographies of the Cold War. To put these episodes into a broader historical context, the article looks back on the expansion of global networks in animal trade through the lens of transport infrastructures, trading networks, and the accompanying red tape, tracing this back to the period around 1900 in order to reveal genealogies, thereby historicizing current logistical practices, policies, and problems. Taking logistics as a critical analytical category for natural history and thus examining natural history as logistics allows us to gain new insights into how logistics not only enabled but also shaped and reshaped natural history’s material, economic, and epistemic frameworks.

2023 Labour History Review Essay Prize Winner

The relatively new bundle of scholarship gathered under the notion of a ‘global 1989’ has produced an innovative field of research that highlights the necessity of a global approach towards the implosion of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Yet this literature has neglected the broad range of international and transnational organizations which had an indispensable role during, but also after, the Cold War. Therefore this article attempts to approach the ‘global 1989’ from the vantage point of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). The analysis of this large trade union confederation sheds new light on post-Cold War labour internationalism, which has often been overshadowed by the developments leading up to the establishment of the ITUC in 2006. Furthermore, the article uncovers how the end of state socialism and its global reverberations engendered new fissures, debates, and tensions within the organization. While there might have been a ‘rush to the East’ during the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, globalization – which within the trade union landscape was accelerated by the global 1989 – became a far more pressing challenge during the 1990s.

How to Design a (Cybernetic) Revolution: Chileans Remember Salvador Allende's Techno-Utopian Project.

The recent commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet offered an opportunity to explore unknown aspects of daily life before and during the dictatorship. This essay focuses on one particular exhibition (How to Design a Revolution: The Chilean Road to Design), which featured a complete reconstruction of the Cybersyn operation room. Based on participant observation, the essay argues that the interaction between visitors and the re-creation in such a particular moment is an invitation to reflect on how technology, socialism, and democracy sought to reinforce each other during the Cold War. The Cybersyn project, one of the most globally recognizable pieces of technology designed in the Global South, still resonates five decades after its implementation (and further destruction by the military), prompting new questions in an era of artificial intelligence and new threats to democracy.

Prince Wan Waithayakon’s Attempt for Rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China at the 1955 Asian-African Conference at Bandung

Abstract After the end of the Second World War, newly emerging nations were being divided up geopolitically into ideological camps – the so-called “Free World” led by the United States and the ‘Communist Bloc’ under the leadership of the Soviet Union. At the same time, there was rising demands for self-determination by national leaders who did not wish to commit exclusively to either ideological camp, as they perceived this to be a form of neo-imperialism. A leading group within this third way of thinking was the Colombo Group. In the midst of this intense three-way struggle, post-war Thailand under the leadership of Premier Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram was heavily influenced by the US in the earliest stages of the Cold War. In the attempt to renegotiate and re-balance Thailand’s position in the heightened political tension of the region, the premier sent the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Wan Waithayakon, to represent Thailand at the Asia-Africa Conference – initiated through the cooperation of the Colombo Group earlier in May 1954 – in April 1955. At this conference Prince Wan exercised independent diplomacy by meeting and negotiating with the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in an attempt to re-balance Thailand’s relations with world powers in both the Free World and the Communist Bloc. This meeting would have significant ramifications for Thailand’s diplomacy throughout the Cold War and has impacted the kingdom’s relations with the People’s Republic of China up to the present day.

Cold War in the White Cube: U.S. Exhibitions of Latin American Art, 1959–1968

Cold War in the White Cube: U.S. Exhibitions of Latin American Art, 1959–1968

Contributions to the history of the Hungarian pontifical institute from the perspective of the Hungarian secret services during the cold war

Contributions to the history of the Hungarian pontifical institute from the perspective of the Hungarian secret services during the cold war

Transpacific rehabilitations: Yamaguchi Yoshiko’s 1950 Sacramento concert and post-incarceration Japanese American cultural memory

Focusing on a recently discovered collection of private recordings of Japanese singers in concert in Sacramento, California, in 1950, this article examines the audio record of the performance by Yamaguchi Yoshiko, previously known as Ri Kōran (Li Xianglan), as an instance of the emergence of new maritime routes of circulation for popular music in the early Cold War period. In the light of the supposed need for both Yamaguchi and her audience of Japanese Americans to seek ‘rehabilitation’ for their wartime activities, including incarceration of the latter in internment camps, the article traces a complex process of negotiation between performer and audience as each seeks to manage the tensions and contradictions of their shifting historical positions. The article also explores other recordings from the same collection, including those by Misora Hibari, Hattori Ryōichi, Watanabe Hamako, Kouta Katsutarō and the Akireta Boys, and provides an account of who made the recordings and how they were unearthed in 2008.

The United States and Asia in 2023

The past year witnessed a broad range of cooperation between the US and Asian states. As tensions with China and Russia and threats from North Korea continued to mount, the Biden administration’s strategic goal of a free and open Indo-Pacific gained ground in many Asian states, and strategic partnerships were formed based on various interests. The trilateral partnership between the US, South Korea, and Japan and deepening ties between the US and India were notable. While US–China relations deteriorated, there was a glimpse of positive adjustment in their competition. However, uncertainties and skepticism were raised regarding shared interests or values. Worries about the rise of a new Cold War intensified. The third year of the Biden administration continued to see persistent challenges to its Asia policy.

The foreign policy of the United States of America towards Iran in the period from 1953 to 1974.

The article examines the foreign policy of the United States of America in the Greater Middle East region, which acquired strategic importance after the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The subject of the study is the American-Iranian relations of 1953-1974, within the framework of which the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi consistently built cooperation with D. Eisenhower, J. Kennedy, L. Johnson and R. Nikson. Despite the fact that their approaches to the implementation of American foreign policy in the Greater Middle East underwent significant changes, the desire to maintain influence in the country, consolidate control over cheap Iranian energy resources and prevent the return of Soviet influence on Iran remained the main directions of American activity. The methodological basis of the research is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity and consistency. The following methods were used in the work: historical-comparative, historical-typological and historical-systemic methods. The reviewed diplomatic documents of the United States of America "Foreign Relations of the United States" allow us to establish that the influence of the oil factor on American-Iranian relations in 1953-1974 remained high, despite changes in the approaches of the presidents to the implementation of foreign policy in the region. The return of Iranian oil to the global market allowed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to initiate the start of the "white revolution", supported by the United States, among others. Huge oil revenues allowed Iran in a short time not only to realize its claims in the region, but also to become an important ally of the United States, responsible for regional security during the presidency of R. Nixon. The work illustrates the changing role of the United States of America and Iran in the Greater Middle East, due, among other things, to the influence of the oil factor.

Editorial

This editorial is an overview of this edition of the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture (EAJPC). In celebration of our tenth anniversary, it features a guest-edit by Yuiko Asaba and Amane Kasai on ‘Resonating Across Oceanic Currents’. Six articles share a focus on the trans-oceanic circulation of popular music to and from Japan during the 1920s to the 1960s. Themes include Japanese tango musicians in Manchuria, interpretations of Chinese popular song in wartime Japan, trans-Pacific circulations of Japanese popular songs in Cold War South Korea and among American military personnel in East Asia. One general paper complements this issue with an analysis on the linguistic nuances of the lyrics of Japan’s top-selling female idol groups. The book reviews section features commentary on recently published works that relate to themes discussed in the research articles.

Book Review: Freedom on the Offensive: Human Rights, Democracy Promotion and US Interventionism in the Late Cold War by William Michael Schmidli

Book Review: <i>Freedom on the Offensive: Human Rights, Democracy Promotion and US Interventionism in the Late Cold War</i> by William Michael Schmidli

Cover Essay: La Gente, Controllers of the Universe.

Diego Rivera's mural El hombre controlador del universo (1934) can be read as foreshadowing the anxieties and optimisms about atomic power that shaped popular culture in Mexico during the nuclear age. In epic fashion, Rivera's vision affirms the agency of ordinary people in the face of a technological epoch while eerily anticipating the bipolarity of the Cold War, themes that would be revisited by Julián Soler in his film Santo contra Blue Demon en la Atlantida (1969), which bears out the prophecy of Rivera's mural.

Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture by W. Patrick McCray (review)

Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture by W. Patrick McCray (review)

Words and Power: Computers, Language, and U.S. Cold War Values by Bernadette Longo (review)

Words and Power: Computers, Language, and U.S. Cold War Values by Bernadette Longo (review)

Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain by Victor Petrov (review)

Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain by Victor Petrov (review)

Splitting Atomic Minds: Hanna Segal and the Fear of Nuclear War in 1980s Britain

In 1985, British psychoanalyst Hanna Segal delivered the paper ‘Silence is the Real Crime’ to the first meeting of the group International Psychoanalysts Against Nuclear Weapons in Hamburg, appealing to her fellow analysts to counteract the denial of the geopolitical realities that characterized the late Cold War by intervening in public debates regarding the threat of nuclear war. A year later she gave a paper in London discussing clinical cases of patients who brought their nuclear anxieties to the couch. This article considers Segal's political and clinical writings on the psychological consequences of the atomic age, situating them in the context in which she was living, writing and practising as an analyst: 1980s Britain in a moment of ‘nuclear anxiety’. I argue that Segal's anti-nuclear writings shed light on what she called the ‘very very tricky’ relationship between psychoanalysis and politics. Segal confronted the tension between maintaining clinical neutrality in the consulting room while publicly expressing her political commitments, wrestling with the complex relationships between individuals and the societies in which they live.

The Ukraine War: Impacts on the International System and Türkiye

This article argues that the Ukraine war is the first major conflict since the end of the Cold War to bring the two major nuclear powers, the U.S. and the Russian Federation, into conflict with one another. The intense U.S. support for the Zelenski Administration in the power struggle in Ukraine and the heavy American sanctions against Russia have pitted Washington and Moscow against each other at a level never seen since the end of the Cold War. The U.S., which was silent on Russia’s intervention in Georgia in 2008, reacted very harshly against Moscow in Ukraine, leading to tension similar to that of the Cold War period. Therefore, this article argues that the impact of the Ukraine war on the international system has been enormous. As a close neighbor of Russia and an ally of the U.S., Türkiye is also significantly affected by this war.

Vietnam War: A Study of History, Causes, and Impact

The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial and influential military conflicts of the 20th century. This journal article aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the history, causes, and impact of the war that raged in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. Using primary and secondary sources, the author investigates various aspects of the conflict, including the historical context, the underlying reasons for the outbreak of the war, and far-reaching consequences that continue to shape regional and global affairs to this day. Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union also played an important role, with the US supporting the South Vietnamese government to prevent the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. Apart from that, the methodology used in this research is a descriptive qualitative method. This method is applied by reviewing various literature related to this research topic. Thus, the role of nationalism and regional dynamics contribute to the escalation of hostilities in the region. These events had significant implications for the trajectory of the conflict and shaped public opinion both in the countries involved and internationally.