Not THAT Gordon Chang: Stanford professor assesses Sino-US relations

Being mixed up with China sceptic is ‘the bane of my life’, says Gordon H. Chang, recently in Hong Kong, who sees America as both fearful of and attracted to China but unlikely to be eclipsed by the rising power any time soon

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Gordon H. Chang, Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities of Stanford University. Photo: Paul Yeung

Published: 6:03am, 3 Sep 2016Updated: 6:02am, 3 Sep 2016

Gordon H. Chang, professor of history at Stanford University, is at pains to explain that he is not Gordon G. Chang. Yes, both men write about China, but that’s where the similarities end.

Gordon Guthrie Chang, a lawyer, author and television pundit, is best known for the sensational 2001 book The Coming Collapse of China, in which he predicted the country’s imminent downfall. History proved him to be way off the mark, but he is still forecasting doomsday scenarios for China.

On the other side of the China debate is Gordon Hsiao-shu Chang, offering a far more measured and well reasoned account.

His take on China is so far opposed to the other Chang that it’s hard to believe people ever mix them up, but it happens regularly. For almost 20 years, the Stanford professor has redirected calls intended for his controversial namesake.

Chang considers himself an American, but has a special connection to Hong Kong, where he was born.

“I have to clarify this because it’s become the bane of my life. People confuse us all the time – we get e-mails for one another,” Chang told a packed audience at the Asia Society in Admiralty last month. “One day I got a long-distance call from someone who sounded like Miss Moneypenny [the fictional secretary in the James Bond world] who said she was calling from MI6 or an intelligence service, and said, ‘We hope you will come and join our generals and admirals for a roundtable discussion about the coming collapse of China.’”

He joked that he briefly toyed with accepting the all-expenses paid trip before putting Miss Moneypenny straight, just as he is keen to put the Asia Society audience straight.