Jason Kelly is Associate Professor of Humanities at the Hamilton School. Kelly’s research and teaching focus on modern China and East Asia from an interdisciplinary perspective. His work explores topics such as U.S.-China relations, Chinese trade, security and diplomacy, and international relations in East Asia. Before joining Hamilton, he was a member of the faculty at Cardiff University and previously served as an assistant professor in the Strategy & Policy Department at the U.S. Naval War College. Prior to entering academia, he worked as a U.S. foreign service officer, including a posting at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He is the author of Market Maoists: The Communist Origins of China’s Capitalist Ascent, published by Harvard University Press in 2021.
Kelly, Jason, “Logics of War in the Era of Reform and Opening,” in Analyzing China’s Domestic and Foreign Policies, ed. Lucas Myers (Wilson Center, 2024).
“Western Engineering in the Cultural Revolution: Mixing ‘Red and Expert’ at the Lanzhou Petrochemical Complex, 1964–1968,” Journal of Cold War Studies (2024).
“Selling ‘New’ China: Marketing and the Unmaking of a Semi-Colonial State,” Journal of Contemporary History 57(3), 708–728 (2022).
“Why Did Henry Stimson Spare Kyoto from the Bomb? Confusion in Postwar Historiography,” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 19(2), 183–203 (2012).
