This talk is part of the Jonathan Spence Memorial Series

Event Time

Saturday, September 19, 2026

Registration
14:00-14:30

Presentation and Q&A
14:30-16:00

Location

Yale Center Beijing 
36th Floor Tower B of IFC Building 8 Jianguomenwai Avenue Chaoyang District, Beijing (Yong'anli Subway Station, Exit C) 

Registration and Fees

Please click “HERE” to register. Please send an email to yalecenterbeijing@yale.edu if there are any problems. If you encounter any payment issues, please attach a screenshot that identifies the issue. 

Ticket: RMB 30 for members of Yale community and Yale or non-Yale students (must submit valid .edu email address to qualify); RMB 60 for regular admission. This price includes canapes.

*The registration fee is non-refundable. Unless due to a force majeure reason, Yale Center Beijing will not refund any part of the registration fee if a participant fails to attend the event.

Walk-ins will not be accepted.

The language of the event will be in English, with AI-enabled captions translated into Chinese in real time.

Note: Seats are available on a first-come-first-served basis.

The Event

Jonathan Spence PhD ’65, the late Sterling Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University, was deeply committed to fostering intellectual exchange between China and the United States. Beyond his scholarship on Chinese history, he helped create opportunities for young scholars to cross borders and engage with different historical traditions, including the PKU–Yale History Student Exchange Program. His legacy lives on through the scholars he mentored and the academic connections he helped build between Yale and China.

On September 19, as part of Yale Center Beijing’s Jonathan Spence Memorial Series, Changwei Chen, Tenured Associate Professor at Peking University’s School of International Studies, and John Delury ’97, MA ’03, PhD ’07, Resident Professor of International Politics at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, will explore China–U.S. relations through the history and legacy of the Cold War. 

Both scholars share a personal connection to Jonathan Spence: Chen participated in the PKU–Yale History Student Exchange Program initiated by Spence, while Delury was Spence’s PhD student and was the first student in the Exchange Program from the Yale side.

Speakers

Changwei Chen
Tenured Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Peking University

Changwei Chen, a Tenured Associate Professor at Peking University's School of International Studies, specializes in Chinese foreign policy, Sino-U.S. relations, and geopolitics in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific. His publications include Australia’s Pursuit of an Independent Foreign Policy under the Whitlam Labor Government: The Achievements and Limitations of a Middle Power (Routledge, 2023), as well as co-authored works on U.S.–Taiwan relations during the Cold War (2026) and Sino-U.S. relations in the 1960s (2025), both published in Chinese. His research has appeared in leading journals, including Historical Research, The Chinese Journal of American Studies, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, and Australian Journal of Politics and History. He has also held visiting professorships at the National University of Public Service (Hungary), the University of Pavia (Italy), and the University of Naples “L’Orientale” (Italy).

John Delury ’97, MA ’03, PhD ’07
Resident Professor of International Politics, The Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies

John Delury is Resident Professor of International Politics at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies. Before joining Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), he was based in Seoul as Professor of China Studies at Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies starting in 2010. In 2023, he was selected as the inaugural Tsao Family Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome and remained in Italy for a second year as visiting professor at LUISS University and John Cabot University. He is the author of Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China (Cornell, 2022) and co-author, with Orville Schell, of Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century (Random House, 2013).

Delury received his BA from Yale College in 1997 and returned to Yale for his MA and PhD in 17th century Chinese intellectual history, advised by Jonathan Spence.