This talk introduces Koji Hirata’s book, Making Mao’s Steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the Transnational Origins of Chinese Socialism (Cambridge University Press, 2024), which explores the evolution of heavy industry in Northeast China (Manchuria), with a focus on the Anshan Iron and Steel Works (Angang). Drawing on archives and interviews in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and English, the book traces Angang’s history from its origins under Japanese colonial rule, through Soviet involvement, to its role as a flagship state-owned enterprise in Maoist China, and finally to a symbol of Northeast China’s “decline” in the post-Mao era.

The book argues that China’s industrialization was part of a broader global history of late industrialization, shaped by both capitalist and socialist models. Northeast China, as a transnational borderland, played a crucial role in this process, shaped by technological transfers, shifting geopolitical dynamics, and competing political regimes. It also highlights the local political dynamics of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under socialism. While SOEs were vertically controlled by central authorities, they also operated within a framework of local bureaucratic bargaining. Finally, the book extends beyond the Mao era to explore Dongbei’s industrial “decline” in the post-Mao reform period and its transformation into China’s “rust belt.”

This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP here. This event is co-sponorsed by the Center for East Asian Studies, the History Department and the Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

About the speaker

Koji Hirata is a Senior Research Fellow (Senior Lecturer) in History at Monash University in Australia. He earned his Ph.D. in history at Stanford University in 2018. Before joining Monash, he was a Research Fellow (JRF) at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. His research focuses on modern China, Japan, and Russia/Soviet Union with broader implications for the global history of capitalism and socialism. His new book Making Mao’s Steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the Transnational Origins of Chinese Socialism (Cambridge University Press, 2024), received the 2025 Reid Prize from the Asian Studies Association of Australia. He is currently working on a new book project about Mao-era China’s foreign economic relations.