In Memoriam: Professor Ezra Vogel (1930–2020)

Without doubt, Professor Ezra Vogel was the doyen of contemporary Chinese and Japanese studies. He straddled and synthesised the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, linguistics, history, political science and international relations. Among his countless contributions to the social sciences, he wrote several landmark books including Canton under Communism: Programs and Politics in a Provincial Capital, 1949–1968; Japan's New Middle Class; Japan as Number One; Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China; and China and Japan: Facing History. Never written in turgid prose and jargon, his books are full of wit, wisdom, understanding and empathy for individuals and civilisations in East Asia.

Professor Ezra Vogel, former Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University at the Public Lecture "The Strange East Asian Triangles China–Japan–United States" held at NUS on 14 August 1998. Image courtesy of the East Asian Institute, NUS.

Besides his seminal scholarship, he was also dedicated to organisations supporting that scholarship, first and foremost Harvard's East Asian Research Center, now the Fairbank Center. Vogel was also a good friend of the East Asian Institute. He was an International Advisory Board member of the East Asian Institute (EAI), National University of Singapore (NUS) from July 1997 to June 2003. Vogel was also an Advisory Board member of EAI's China: An International Journal. He delivered two public lectures for EAI at NUS in 1998 and 2001. Both lectures focused on the triangular China–Japan–US relations. Vogel believed that it is critical for these three countries to understand each other well and foster cooperative relations for peace, prosperity and stability in East Asia. Research on the triangular relations, in his view, is therefore crucial, and he inspired many researchers, including scholars at EAI, to pursue it.

This issue of China: An International Journal is dedicated to the memory of Professor Ezra Vogel—an exemplary scholar and an old friend of EAI.