Alan M Wachman

Updated on Oct 31, 2023

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Other names 华安澜 Fields International relations Known for Cross-strait relations		Name Alan Wachman Books Why Taiwan?, Taiwan Died June 21, 2012

Born October 13, 1958 Bucks County, Pennsylvania ( 1958-10-13 ) Citizenship United States of America Institutions Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in the PRC China Institute in America The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Alma mater Harvard University (B.A.) The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (M.A.) Harvard University (M.A.),(Ph.D.) Thesis Converging quests : identity, nationalism, and democratization in Taiwan (1992) Institution Hopkins–Nanjing Center, China Institute, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Doctoral advisor Roderick MacFarquhar

Alan Michael Wachman (Chinese: 华安澜, pinyin: Huá Ānlán) (October 13, 1958 – June 21, 2012) was a scholar of East Asian politics and international relations, specializing in cross-strait relations and Sino-U.S. relations. He was a professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Previously he had been the co-director of the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in the PRC, and the president of China Institute in America.

Education and career

Alan Wachman majored in art history at Harvard University. During his studies he took a course in Asian art, sparking his interest in Asia. In 1980 he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. His undergraduate thesis was A seated wooden Kuan-yin in the Fogg Art Museum: an analysis of style and an examination of Chinese Buddhist iconography. Having completed his degree, he went to teach English in Taiwan. While abroad he met Paul Hsu, alumnus and board member of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, who encouraged him to pursue graduate studies there.

Wachman subsequently attended The Fletcher School. There he studied international relations as part of the Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy program, graduating in 1984. He continued his graduate studies in government at Harvard University, where he completed a Master of Arts in 1988 and a PhD in 1992. His doctoral dissertation was titled Converging quests: identity, nationalism, and democratization in Taiwan.

From 1993 and until 1995 he became the American Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in the PRC. From 1995 to 1997 he served in New York as the president of China Institute in America.

In 1997 he began to work at The Fletcher School as an assistant professor of international politics, later being promoted to associate professor and gaining tenure. Concurrently, he was involved in other positions. Between 2008 and 2009 he was a fellow in the East Asia Institute's Program on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia, as a guest lecturer at Peking University in Beijing, East Asia Institute in Seoul, and Keio University in Tokyo.

Wachman was also a member of the editorial boards of Asia Policy, China Security, Issues and Studies: A Social Science Quarterly on China, Taiwan, and East Asian Affairs and Harvard Studies on Taiwan. His research included grant support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, and the East-West Center.

After a year of battling pancreatic cancer, Alan Wachman died on June 21, 2012 at the age of 53. The Professor Alan M. Wachman Memorial Fund, a scholarship endowed at The Fletcher School in his memory, supports "students engaging in international non-profit work and reflects Alan's fundamental belief in the importance of making the world a better place."

Personal life

Alan Wachman was the son of Barbara and Harold Y. Wachman of Lexington, Massachusetts. Harold Y. Wachman was a professor and a director of graduate studies in the department of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1997 Wachman married Laura Hess, a professor of Chinese at Brown University. They had two children.

Research

Wachman's scholarly work focussed on the study of Chinese foreign relations, Sino-US relations, Taiwan, and cross-strait relations (relations between mainland China and Taiwan). He researched links between diplomatic history and contemporary international security. His books Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization (1994) and Why Taiwan? Geostrategic Rationales for China's Territorial Integrity (2007) contributed to the understanding of cross-strait relations, and informed policy making. He provided expert testimony to the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Wachman also focussed on Mongolia's international relations, particularly with China and the US. During his last years he was working on completing a book about Mongolia’s national security in the context of emerging rivalries among great powers in Asia.

Books

Tu, Weiming; Hejtmanek, Milan; Wachman, Alan M., eds. (1992). The Confucian World Observed: A Contemporary Discussion of Confucian Humanism in east Asia. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0824814519.

Wachman, Alan M. (1994). Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-1563243981.

Graham, Lawrence; Farkas, Richard P.; Grady, Robert C.; Joffe, George; Studlar, Donley T.; Wachman, Alan M. (2006). The Politics of Governing: A Comparative Introduction. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. ISBN 978-1933116662.

Wachman, Alan M. (2007). Why Taiwan? Geostrategic Rationales for China's Territorial Integrity. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0804755542.

Articles

Wachman, Alan M. (1984). "Carter's constitutional conundrum: an examination of the president's unilateral termination of a treaty (Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan)". The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.

Tu, Weiming; Wachman, Alan M. (1990). "Workshop on Confucian Humanism". Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. doi:10.2307/3824177.

Wachman, Alan M. (2000). "United States’ Policy and Taiwan’s Struggle to Sustain the Status Quo". Harvard Studies on Taiwan: Papers of the Taiwan Studies Workshop. 3.

Wachman, Alan M. (2000). "Taiwan: Parent, Province, or Blackballed State?". Journal of Asian and African Studies. 35 (1). doi:10.1163/156852100512112.

Wachman, Alan M. (2001). "Does the Diplomacy of Shame Promote Human Rights in China?". Third World Quarterly. 22 (2).

Wachman, Alan M. (2002). "Credibility and the U.S. Defense of Taiwan: Nullifying the Notion of a "Taiwan Threat"". Issues & Studies. 38 (1).

Wachman, Alan M. (2002). "The China-Taiwan Relationship: A Cold War of Words". Orbis. 46 (4).

Wachman, Alan M. (2005). "American policy towards China'". Politique Américaine.

Wachman, Alan M. (2009). "Don't forsake Mongolia, in Special Round Table, Advising the new President" (PDF). Asia Policy. 7 (1).

Wachman, Alan M. "Thinking About a Healthy Military Balance in the Taiwan Strait". Asia Policy. 8 (1). doi:10.1353/asp.2009.0076.

Wachman, Alan M. (2005). "Stamped Out!: Carto-Philatelic Evidence of the PRC's Constructed Notion of China's Territorial Integrity". East Asia: An International Quarterly. 22 (31). doi:10.1007/s12140-005-0008-4.

Wachman, Alan M. (2007). "La politique chinoise des Etats-Unis ou l'Amérique face à elle-même (The United States' Chinese policy, or America faced with itself)". Monde chinois.

Wachman, Alan M. (Winter 2008). "Ensnared by Beijing: Washington Succumbs to the PRC’s Diplomacy of Panic". WSI China Security. 4 (1). Archived from the original on 2013-10-24. CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)

Wachman, Alan M. (2010). "Suffering What It Must? Mongolia and the Power of the ‘Weak’". Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs. 54 (4). doi:10.1016/j.orbis.2010.07.006.

Book chapters

Competing Identities in Taiwan chapter in The Other Taiwan. 1945 to the Present edited by Murray A. Rubinsten (Armonk (NY): M.E. Sharpe, 1994)

America's Taiwan Quandary: How Much Does Chen's Election Matter chapter in Taiwan's Presidential Politics, Democratization and Cross-Strait Relations in the Twenty-first Century (Taiwan in the Modern World) edited by Muthiah Alagappa (Armonk (NY): M.E. Sharpe, 2001)

Constitutional Diplomacy: Taipei's Pen, Beijing's Sword. chapter in Global Studies, China edited by Suzanne Ogden (Dushkin Pub Group, 2005)

Did Abraham Lincoln Oppose Taiwan’s Secession from China? chapter in Secession as an International Phenomenon, edited by Don H. Doyle (University of Georgia Press, 2010)

Playing by or Playing with the Rules of UNCLOS? chapter in Military Activities in the EEZ, edited by Peter Dutton (Naval War College - China Maritime Studies Institute, 2010)

Why China Gets a "Rise" Out of Us: Ruminations on PRC Foreign Relations chapter in The People's Republic of China at 60: An International Assessment, edited by William C. Kirby (Harvard University Press, 2011)

Short essays

Words Matter, Mr. Clinton (Far Eastern Economic Review, 1998)

Yiguo, liangzhi (one country, two systems) in the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture, edited by Edward L Davis, (Routledge, 2004)

China’s Lincolnophilia (The China Beat, November 27, 2009 )

Congressional hearings

Written statement of Alan Wachman at the hearing on The U.S.-China relationship: Economics and security in perspective (United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, February 1–2, 2007)

Full transcript of hearing

Written statement of Alan Wachman at the hearing on China’s Current and Emerging Foreign Policy Priorities (United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, April 13, 2011)