China was at war almost constantly from 1937 to 1953. In that period it suffered a war of invasion by Japan, civil war between Nationalist and Communist forces, war against the global superpower on the Korean peninsula, and the Cold War. It was against this backdrop of violence that the Chinese Communist Party triumphed and began to build a new nation.

Hans van de Ven discussed his new book, China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China, followed by a conversation on the changing views of the period in China and the United States – and the present-day implications of the violent origins for the People’s Republic.