ESP Biography



KETIAN ZHANG, MIT PhD candidate in Political Science



Major: Political Science

College/Employer: MIT

Year of Graduation: G

Picture of Ketian Zhang

Brief Biographical Sketch:

I an a PhD candidate in the political science department of MIT. My primary fields of interests are international relations and comparative politics. Specifically, I am interested in Chinese foreign policy and U.S.-China relations.



Past Classes

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Z9079: China, the United States, and the Korean War in Splash 2014 (Nov. 22 - 23, 2014)
The United States entered the Cold War to contain the influence of the Soviet Union. And “hot” wars were not on the minds of U.S. policy makers. Yet why did the United States get involved in the Korean War? Why did it cross the 38th parallel and advance northward? Equally puzzling was China’s reaction. Why did China enter the Korean War, when itself had just experienced the traumatic war of resistance against Japan and the ensuing civil war? This lecture aims at unraveling some of the puzzles regarding the Chinese and U.S. decisions to enter the Korean War. It will discuss recent historiography of the Korean War, with a focus on how to choose and use historical evidence. The lecture will also discuss lessons of the Korean War and how it might shed light on the current U.S.-China relationship.