Ariane Knüsel is Senior Researcher, working on Sino-Swiss relations in the Cold War. She has been Swiss Scholar at the Wilson Center, and Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Her publications deal with Western relations with China, Western media portrayals of China, and Chinese and Swiss intelligence.

Research interests
- China and the West since the Opium Wars
- Chinese espionage in Europe
-Ttransnational Swiss history
- Visual History
- Discursive and visual constructions of nationalism
- Political history and diplomatic history

• Biographie - Lebenslauf

  Ariane Knüsel is external scientific collaborator at the University  of Fribourg, associate researcher at Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (dodis.ch) and at the University of Basel's Europainstitut. She has been Swiss Scholar at the Wilson Center,  Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and has an MA in Cultural History from Birkbeck College, the University of London, and an MA in English Literature and Linguistics, History, and Sinology from the University of Zurich, a PhD from the University of Zurich, and was awarded the title Privatdozentin by the University of Fribourg (habilitation in 2020). She has taught history and sinology at the University of Zurich, and she is currently a teaching fellow at the University of Basel.

• Domaine de recherche - Forschungsschwerpunkte
  • Switzerland and China
  • Chinese propaganda and intelligence networks in Europe during the Cold War
  • Western media discourse on China (particularly editorial cartoons)
  • Western political, economic, social and cultural relations with China since 1840 
  • Swiss counterintelligence
  • cartoons as historical sources
  • discursive constructions of nationhood in the 19th and 20th centuries
  • Tibetans in Switzerland
  • visual history
  • media history
  • historical network theory
  • diplomatic history
  • cultural history
• Projets de recherche - Forschungsprojekte

  Projets de recherche en cours - Laufende Forschungsprojekte

  SNSF Habilitation « China and Switzerland in the Cold War: Political, Economic, and Intelligence Networks, 1949-1989 », part of the SNSF research project « Les relations sino-suisses au temps de la guerre froide : une « rupture impossible » ? (1949-1989) » , directed by Prof. Claude Hauser.

   

  Projets de recherche terminés - Abgeschlossene Forschungsprojekte

   

   

• Publications - Publikationen
  • Monographies

    2024 Die Schweiz und China: Von den Opiumkriegen bis zur neuen Seidenstrasse, Ko-Autorin mit Ralph Weber, Hier und Jetzt: Zürich.

    2022 100 Years of the Swiss Consulate’s Presence in Guangzhou. Herausgeber: The Consulate General of Switzerland in Guangzhou https://www.eda.admin.ch/content/dam/countries/countries-content/china/en/100-years-swisa-consulate-presence-guangzhou.pdf

    2022 China’s European Headquarters: Switzerland and China in the Cold War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    2012 Framing China: Media Images and Political Debates in Britain, the USA and Switzerland, 1900-1950, Farnham: Ashgate.

  • Peer-reviewed Articles

    2024 „Worse than Hitler and Nazi Germany: How Swiss Diplomats Struggled to Cope with the Cultural Revolution”, Journal of Chinese History, 8/1, S. 73-94. doi:10.1017/jch.2022.13

    2020 “Swiss Counterintelligence and Chinese Espionage in the Cold War”, Journal of Cold War Studies 22/3, pp. 4-31.

    2020 "White on the outside but red on the inside’: Switzerland and Chinese intelligence networks during the Cold War”, Cold War History, 20/1, pp. 77-94.
    2019 "White on the outside but red on the inside’: Switzerland and Chinese intelligence networks during the Cold War”, Cold War History, DOI:
    10.1080/14682745.2019.1575368.
    2017 „Facing the Dragon – Teaching the Boxer Uprising Through Cartoons”, The History Teacher 50:2, pp. 201-226.
    2016 “Les caricaturistes européens et le dragon chinois au xixe siècle: l’évolution d’une représentation de l’ennemi”, Relations Internationales 3/167, Le dialogue Asie-Europe (XIXe-XXIe siècles), pp. 53-72.
    2015 “‘Armé de la pensée Mao Tsé-toung, on peut résoudre tous les problèmes’: l'influence de la Révolution culturelle sur les relations de la Suisse avec la République populaire de China“, Relations Internationales 3/163: Suisse et Guerre froide dans le tiers-monde, pp. 29-46.
    2014 ‘A Tricky Business: Swiss Perceptions of Informal Imperialism in China in the 1920s’, Journal of Modern Chinese History 2, pp. 210-229.
    2013 ‘British Conservatives, the Red Menace and Anti-British Agitation in China, 1924-1927’, Cultural History 2/1, pp. 62-92.
    2008 ‘“Western civilization” against “hordes of yellow savages”: British perceptions of the Boxer Rebellion’, Asiatische Studien LXII/1, pp. 43-83.
    2007 ‘British diplomacy and the telegraph in nineteenth-century China’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 18/3, pp. 517-537.

  • Chapters in Edited Volumes

    2023  „’The Tea Merchant Has Returned’: The Intelligence Activities of the Chinese Consulate-General in Geneva”. In: Sue Onslow und Lori Maguire (Hg.), Consuls and Consulates in the Cold War. Leiden: Brill, 82-107.

    2023  „When Students Rewrite History: a Twistory Project for Schools, Museums, and Archives“. In: Proceedings of the H-Net Teaching Conference, 1(1), S. 58-69.  https://doi.org/10.33823/phtc.v1i1.175.

     

    2018 “Small Country – Great Importance: Switzerland and the Chinese Presence in Europe during the 1950s and 1960s”, in: Marco Wyss, Janick Schaufelbuehl, Valeria Zanier (eds.), Europe and China in the Cold War: Exchanges Beyond the Bloc Logic and the Sino-Soviet Split. Leiden: Brill, pp. 42-61.
    2014 “‘The Chinaman of old cannot be compared to the Chinaman of today’: Reports from the Swiss Consulate in Shanghai as Colonial Discourse”, in: Harald Fischer-Tiné and Patricia Purtschert (eds.), Colonial Encounters of the Swiss Kind: Imperial Entanglements and Postcolonial Assemblages. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 259-277.
    2012 “Yellow Peril: The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) to the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924”, in: Patrick J. Hayes (ed.), The Making of Modern Immigration: An Encyclopedia of People and Ideas, Greenwood Press and ABC Clio, pp. 749-773.
    2011 “The Civil War to the Gilded Age: 1859 to 1900”, in: Rodney Carlisle (ed.), Multicultural America, Facts On File, pp. 25-42.

  • Journal Articles

    5.2024 Ko-Autorin mit Heidi Pechlaner Gut, „Wenn Schüler*innen zu Detektiven der Vergangenheit werden: das Twistory-Projekt der Kantonsschule Baden“, Didactica Historica, S. 139-145.

    9.2023  „Embargoumgehungen: Als China sich über die Schweiz Material für die Atombombe besorgte“, Swissinfo, https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/kultur/embargoumgehungen-als-china-sich-ueber-die-schweiz-material-fuer-die-atombombe-besorgte/48665020

    4.2023 „Drehscheibe Schweiz“, NZZ Geschichte, März 2023, S. 44-51.

    4.2023 Ko-Autorin mit Heidi Pechlaner, „Twistory: Ein kooperatives Projekt für Museen und Sekundarstufe II“, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, Nr. 3-4, S. 211-218.

    2.2023  „Dr. No in Bern: Als die Schweiz zum Spionagezentrum Chinas wurde“, Swissinfo, https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/kultur/spionage_dr-no-in-bern-als-die-schweiz-zum-spionagezentrum-chinas-wurde/48274382

    7.2022  „Fu Manchu in Bern: Switzerland was a hub for China’s spy networks in the Cold War“, History Today 7/72.

    2020 Editorial «Schweiz und Ostasien: Vernetzungen und Verflechtungen», Cyril Cordoba, Matthieu Gillabert und Ariane Knüsel (Hg.). Traverse - Se connecter à l’Asie de l’Est / Verflechtungen mit Ostasien 1, S. 15-22.

    6.2017  “The Swiss Witnesses to China’s Cultural Revolution”, Sources and Methods: A Blog of the History and Public Policy Program, Wilson Center, 19.6.2017, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/the-swiss-witnesses-to-chinas-cultural-revolution.

    2013 „Aloys Jost: Ein Bündner Patriot und die Französische Revolution”, Bündner Monatsblatt 4, S. 493-515.

    2004 „Maienfeld im 16. Jahrhundert”, Terra Plana 1, S. 25-41.

     

  • Book Reviews

    2013 Review of “Tom Buchanan, East Wind: China and the British Left, 1925-1976. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012”, The American Historical Review 18/3, p. 935.
    2012 Review of “Shogo Suzuki, Civilization and Empire: China and Japan’s Encounter with European International Society (London and New York, 2009)”, Comparativ 22/3, pp. 94-96.
    2010 Review of “Sarah Stockwell (ed.), The British Empire: Themes and Perspectives, Malden und Oxford, 2008”, Canadian Journal of History XLV/2, pp. 437-439.

  • Expert interviews for articles and broadcasts

    23.04.2024 Interview für den Artikel “Birgt China-Kooperationen Risiken?” von Simon Mathis, Luzerner Zeitung. Online Titel: Verkehrshaus kooperiert für Ausstellung mit China – besteht Spionage-Gefahr? https://www.luzernerzeitung.ch/zentralschweiz/stadt-region-luzern/stadt-luzern-verkehrshaus-kooperiert-fuer-ausstellung-mit-china-besteht-spionage-gefahr-ld.2608830?reduced=true.

    15.04.2024 Interview für RTS “Mise au Point”/SRF “Rundschau” zum Thema Chinesische Spionage in der Schweiz von François Ruchti. https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2024/article/un-etudiant-d-une-ecole-hoteliere-de-leysin-soupconne-d-etre-un-espion-chinois-28459388.html und den SRF Beitrag zum Titel “Der Hotelier des Rössli in MEiringen – ein Spion Chinas?” https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/aussenpolitik/der-hotelier-beim-milit%c3%a4rflugplatz-meiringen-ein-spion-chinas/75851683.

    19.01.2024 Interview für den Artikel “Der Krieg im Klassenzimmer” von Peter Johannes Meier, Beobachter, Nr. 2, S. 15-17. https://www.beobachter.ch/arbeit/schule/der-krieg-spaltet-die-klassenzimmer-672212.

    30.12.2023 Interview für den Artikel “Studenten unter Spionageverdacht” von Philippe Reichen und Thomas Knellwolf, Tages-Anzeiger. https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/spione-in-lausanne-chinesen-in-uni-bibliothek-wecken-verdacht-634497024626.

    02.03.2023 Interview für den Artikel “China and Russia test Switzerland’s long-standing neutrality”, Nikke Asia von Kenji Kawase, https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/China-and-Russia-test-Switzerland-s-long-standing-neutrality

    04.02.2023 Interview “Chinas Aufstieg zur Weltmacht: ‘Die Schweiz war als Spionage-Hub sehr attraktiv’”, geführt von Marco Tribelhorn, NZZ, https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/chinas-aufstieg-zur-weltmacht-die-schweiz-war-als-spionage-hub-sehr-attraktiv-ld.1723834?kid=nl152_2023-2-6&ga=1&mktcid=nled&mktcval=152&reduced=true.

    11.12.2022 Interview für Zeitungsartikel “I Beijings tjeneste” von Magnus Boding Hansen, in Weekendadvisen über Chinesische Spionage in Dänemark. https://www.weekendavisen.dk/2022-49/samfund/i-beijings-tjeneste

    8.8.2022  Interview mit Miranda Melcher für einen Podcast über China’s European Headquarters, New Books Network, https://newbooksnetwork.com/chinas-european-headquarters

    26.7.2022 Interview für den Artikel “‘Codewort Teehändler’: Wie die Schweiz im Kalten Krieg zum Drehkreuz für chinesische Agenten wurde”, Tagblatt (CH Media), 26.7.2022  https://www.tagblatt.ch/schweiz/geschichte-codewort-teehaendler-wie-die-schweiz-im-kalten-krieg-zum-drehkreuz-fuer-chinesische-agenten-wurde-ld.2321393?reduced=true

    22.6.2022 Interview für den Artikel “Stadtgeschichte hautnah erleben”, Rundschau, 22.6.2022, https://www.e-journal.ch/region/stadtgeschichte-hautnah-erleben/

    14.6.2022 Interview für den Artikel “Eine Gasmaske, eine Bettflasche und ein Damenhut: Kantischüler erforschen die Stadtgeschichte mit Archivobjekten”, Badener Tagblatt, 14.6.2022, https://www.badenertagblatt.ch/aargau/baden/baden-eine-gasmaske-eine-bettflasche-und-ein-damenhut-kantischueler-erforschen-die-stadtgeschichte-mit-archivobjekten-ld.2302064.

    6.6.2022 Interview über das Twistory Projekt mit dem SRF Regionaljournal Aargau/Solothurn.

    4.6.2022 Interview für den Artikel “La Suisse a perdu ses avantages face à la Chine” von Yves Genier, La Liberté, 4.6.2022, https://www.laliberte.ch/news/suisse/la-suisse-a-perdu-ses-avantages-face-a-la-chine-648947.

    18.9.2020 Interview für den Artikel “Les espions chinois sont les bienvenus en Suisse” von Isabelle Mayault, Le Monde (Le Mag), 18.9.2020.

    4.6.2019 Interview für den Artikel „How Switzerland reacted to Tiananmen Square“ von Patrick Boehler, Caroline Honegger und Carlo Pisani, Swissinfo, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/from-the-archives_what-swiss-tourists-saw-at-tiananmen-square/44968714

    2.7.2016 Gast der Radiosendung „Die Kulturrevolution – eine chinesische Katastrophe“, SRF4 News Zeitblende, https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/zeitblende/die-kulturrevolution-eine-chinesische-katastrophe

    26.4.2010 Interview über die Schweizer Beziehungen mit China für die DRS 2 Sendung Kontexte, „Expo 2010: das Schweiz-Bild in China“, https://www.srf.ch/play/radio/kontext/audio/expo- 2010-das-schweiz-bild-in-china?id=30307b2c-a00e-4de6-96d2-4950879e4428.

     

     

     

• Conférences et tables-rondes - Vorträge und Podien
  • Gastvorträge und Reden (seit 2020)

    15.05.2024 Zweisprachiges Kolloquium Zeitgeschichte, Universität Freiburg, “Chinesische Spionage im Westen – Ein Überblick”.

    30.05.2023 Gastvortrag “Writing about Intelligence”, Politics & International Studies M.A. Dissertation Workshop, The University of Warwick.

    12.12.2022 Gastvortrag mit Cyril Cordoba, “La Chine et la Suisse dans la Guerre froide”, Universität Freiburg.

    05.11.2022 Gastvortrag „Western Images of China from the Qing Dynasty to the Present“, Global Qing Virtual Lecture Series der Washington University in St. Louis.

    11.10.2022 Gastvortrag "‘Tell the Consul-General, I can give you everything that is interesting’: China's use of Switzerland as an intelligence hub in the Cold War”, North American Society for Intelligence History Virtual Brown Bag.

    16.08.2022 Einladung ins Bundehaus von Bundeskanzler Walter Thurnherr, um mit ihm China’s European Headquarters und mögliche Lehren für die Schweizer Chinapolitik zu besprechen.

    20.06.2022 Gastvortrag „Die Schweiz und China: Diplomatische Gratwanderungen im Kalten Krieg“, Seminari die Dodis, Diplomatische Dokumente der Schweiz, Bundesarchiv, Bern.

    26.10.2020 Gastvortrag "Swiss Neutrality and Relations with China in the Cold War", im Seminar Crises, Guerre froide et neutralité: les relations transnationales de la Suisse en Asie et en Afrique, 1945-1985 an der Universität Lausanne
• Médias - Medienbeiträge
  • Medienbeiträge

    Expert for news article « How Switzerland reacted to Tiananmen Square » by Patrick Boehler, Caroline Honegger, and Carlo Pisani, Swissinfo (international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation), 4.6.2019, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/from-the-archives_what-swiss-tourists-saw-at-tiananmen-square/44968714

    “The Swiss Witnesses to China’s Cultural Revolution”, Sources and Methods: A blog of the History and Public Policy Program, Wilson Center, 19.6.2017,  https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/the-swiss-witnesses-to-chinas-cultural-revolution

    Radio interview, "Die Kulturrevolution - eine chinesische Katastrophe", Zeitblende, SRF 4,  2.7.2016, https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/zeitblende/die-kulturrevolution-eine-chinesische-katastrophe

     Radio interview, "Expo 2010: das Schweiz-Bild in China", Kontext, DRS 2, 26.4.2010, https://www.srf.ch/play/radio/kontext/audio/expo-2010-das-schweiz-bild-in-china?id=30307b2c-a00e-4de6-96d2-4950879e4428

  • Radio Interviews

    2017 Radio interview, "Die Kulturrevolution - eine chinesische Katastrophe", Zeitblende, SRF 4, 2.7.2016, https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/zeitblende/die-kulturrevolutioneine-chinesische-katastrophe
    2010 Radio interview, "Expo 2010: das Schweiz-Bild in China", Kontext, DRS 2, 26.4.2010, https://www.srf.ch/play/radio/kontext/audio/expo-2010-das-schweizbild-
    in-china?id=30307b2c-a00e-4de6-96d2-4950879e4428

  • Conférences et exposés / Konferenzbeiträge

    3.2024  “Intelligence with Chinese characteristics”: Chinese intelligence operations in Western Europe in the early years of the PRC, Konferenz der Association for Asian Studies.

    5.2023 “Tibetan Refugees and Switzerland’s Political Relations with China, 1960-1990”, Konferenz des New Diplomatic History Network.

    8.2022 “Twistory Projects for the Classroom”, H-Net Teaching Conference Unchartered Terrritories: Teaching History, Humanities, and Social Sciences in Innovative Ways.

    8.2022 „Stuck between a rock and a hard place: China’s European Headquarters in Switzerland and Swiss relations with the USA in the Cold War“, an der Konferenz der European Association of Chinese Studies in Olomouc.

    12.2020 „The Geneva Factor: China, International Organisations, and Swiss Soft Power in the Cold War“, New Approaches to the History of Soft Power in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile/Zoom.

    8.2020 „Tibetan Refugees and Switzerland’s Political Relations with China, 1960-1990”, an der Konferenz der Historical Society for Twentieth-Century China (HSTCC), China’s Engagement with the Modern World (Zoom).

    Nov. 2016 “Small Country-Great importance: Sino-Swiss Relations in the Cold War”, The Smaller European Powers and China in the Cold War, 1949-1989, University of Lausanne.
    Sept. 2016 “Economic relations between Switzerland and China during the 1960s and 1970s”, Fudan University, Shanghai.
    June 2016 “European Cartoonists and the Chinese Dragon: The Evolution of an enemy image”, Le Dialogue Asie-Europe, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. “‘Business, not trade agreements’. Wirtschaftspolitische Beziehungen zwischen der Schweiz und China, 1950-1980”, 4. Schweizerische Geschichtstage, University of Lausanne.
    April 2016 “Beijing’s headquarters in Europe? Sino-Swiss Relations in the Cold War”, Werkstatt Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, University of Zurich.
    Oct. 2015 “Beijing’s Headquarters in Europe: Sino-Swiss Relations in the Cold War and Lessons for Today”, Wilson Center, Washington D.C.
    Nov. 2014 “The Effects of the Cultural Revolution on Sino-Swiss Relations during the Cold War”, Workshop La Suisse et la Guerre froide dans le Tier Monde, IHEID, Geneva.
    May 2013 “The Chinese Civil War in British Newsreels”, workshop Ab Band: Ton- und Bildquellen als Gegenstand historischer Forschung (Audio and visual sources in historical research), University of Zurich.
    Feb. 2013 “Legitimising the Swiss Presence in China: The Swiss Press and Chinese Antiforeign Agitation in the 1920s”, 3. Schweizerische Geschichtstage, University of Fribourg. “British and Swiss Views of the Advent of the People’s Republic of China (1945-1949)”, La Chine et l’Europe au XXe siècle: Regards historiques croisés autour de la République, University of Fribourg.
    Sept. 2011 “Yellow Peril or Americanised Pupils? Perceptions of Chinese and Chinese Americans from 1850 to 1950”, conference Un-Americans and the Un-American: From 1776 to 9/11, University of Leicester.
    July 2011 “Anticommunism and the Press: British, Swiss and American Reactions to the Chinese Civil War”, World History Association’s conference in Beijing.
    May 2010 “Newspapers and Sources for Cultural Historians”, International Society for Cultural History’s conference Cultural Histories: Close Readings, Critical Syntheses in Turku.
    Sept. 2009 “Wilson, FDR, Truman, and the Missionary Imperative in US China Policy”, British International Studies Association’s conference on US Foreign Policy, University of East Anglia.
    June 2009 “Contrasting Images of China Propagated by American Missionaries and Merchants During the Interwar Years”, World History Association’s conference in Salem, MA.
    April 2009 “‘A war between east and west, between the yellow peoples and the whites’: The Yellow Peril and US National Identity in the 1930s”, British Association of American Studies’ conference, University of Nottingham.
    Dec. 2008 “China Images in the US Press from 1911 to 1949”, conference Americans, Macao and China 1784-1950: Historical Relations, Interactions and Connections, University of Macao.
    July 2008 “‘A terror which has been truly Asiatic’: The Yellow Peril in World War Two”, conference Justifying War: Propaganda, Politics and War in the Modern Age, University of Kent.
    June 2008 “The British Press, the Labour Movement and Anti-British Agitation in China 1925-1927” conference The British Labour Movement and Imperialism, University of Central Lancashire.
    April 2008 “China images in Britain, the USA and Switzerland”, Spring Academy on American History, Culture & Politics, Heidelberg Center for American Studies.
    July 2007 “Imperialism and China Images in Britain, 1900 to 1949”, Media and Imperialism Conference of the International Association for Media and History in Amsterdam.

  • Guest Lectures

    April 2016 “The Yellow Peril: Origin and Development of an Enemy Image, 1860-1950”, Histoire Contemporaine, University of Fribourg.
    June 2009 “China images in Western media 1900-1950”, Master of Advanced Studies in History, University of Zurich.

• Colloques et Workshops - Tagungen und Workshops

Publikationen