Thomas C. Burnham

Research Topic

The Competing Development Aid Efforts of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union in 1960s Africa

Supervisor: Professor Steve Smith

    After receiving language training at Donghua University and graduating from New Mexico State University with a Bachelor of Arts in history and government in 2012, I studied Mandarin and pursued a master's degree in foreign language education at Hebei Normal University from 2012 to 2014.  During that time, I continued my language training at Shenyang University and travelled back and forth from Shijiazhuang to Khabarovsk and Moscow.  I then lived and worked in Moscow for one year before returning to NMSU in 2015 to write my master's thesis on the Sino-Soviet Split.

    Today, I study Sino-Soviet engagement with Africa in the 1960s, focusing on the two Cold War powers' competing aid efforts on the continent.  Beginning in the late 1950s, both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China leveraged foreign aid in Africa to realize their respective foreign policy goals.  My project examines Soviet and Chinese aid during the first decade of the decolonization of Africa and seeks to understand those efforts both in terms of their negotiation and implementation as well as in terms of their local reception and on-the-ground impact.

Academic Publications:

“历史的低音：亲苏联和中国对非之援助，1960-1963” ("The Bass Notes of History: The Former Soviet Union and China's Aid to West Africa, 1960-1963"), 《文化纵横》(Beijing Cultural Review)，2019年第四期，94-103页

Conference Papers and Presentations:

"Supping with a Long Spoon in the Indian Ocean: The Sino-Soviet Competition over Mauritius", Contemporary China Graduate Workshop 2019, November 2019

"Exporting Self-Reliance and Opposing Social Imperialism: Chinese Economic and Ideological Programs in West Africa, 1960-1966", International Convention of Asia Scholars 11, July 2019

"The Bass Notes of History: The Former Soviet Union and China's Aid to West Africa, 1960-1963"，第四届全国国际关系史研究生论坛 (Fourth National Forum for Graduate Students in International Relations History)，July 2019.  Subsequently published in Beijing Cultural Review.

"A General Comparison of Early Soviet and Chinese Aid Diplomacy in West Africa, 1960-1963", British Postgraduate Network for Chinese Studies Annual Conference, June 2019

Awards:

Kennan Institute Title VIII-Supported Short-Term Grant, December 2020

Confucius China Studies Program Joint Research Ph.D. Fellowship, June 2020

China and Inner Asia Council Small Grant, April 2020

Royal Historical Society Funding for Research Expenses Outside the UK, February 2020

Clark Fund, Michaelmas 2019

Universities' China Committee in London Grant, June 2019

Keble Study Award, Hilary 2019-Hilary 2020

Roles at Oxford:

External tutor of Marx and Marxism (Pol. 217) for St. Anne's College, Michaelmas 2020

Co-convenor of the International History of East Asia Seminar at the China Centre, Trinity 2019-present