John D. Wong’s research focuses on the flow of people, goods, capital, and ideas. With a particular interest in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta area/Greater Bay Area, he explores how these flows connect the region to the Chinese political center in the north and its maritime partners in the South China Sea and beyond.

Studying the China trade in the context of early-nineteenth-century global exchange, his first monograph, Global Trade in the Nineteenth Century: The House of Houqua and the Canton System (Cambridge University Press, 2016; Chinese edition, HKU Press, 2025), demonstrates how China trade partners sustained their economic exchange on a global scale long before Western imperialism ushered in the era of globalization in a Eurocentric modern world.  In Hong Kong Takes Flight (Harvard, 2022; Chinese edition, HKU Press, 2023), John explores the development of the airline industry in Hong Kong after WWII. By not accepting Hong Kong’s development into a regional and global hub as preordained, this study explores globalization and global networks in the making.

His publications have appeared in business history journals such as Business History Review and Enterprise & Society, as well as journals with an area studies focus such as the Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Modern Asian Studies, and Modern China.  John’s research has received funding support, which to date has included Mellon, Luce, Fulbright awards, as well as GRF grants and the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council.

John serves on the editorial board of Business History and is an editor of the Asian Business Histories series at the Hong Kong University Press.

John received his BA (Hons) in Economics from the University of Chicago, MBA from Stanford University, and PhD in History from Harvard University. Before his academic career, he worked for a number of years in finance and holds the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

Articles and Book Chapters

“The Global Economy and the Origins of Modern Chinese Business,” Business History, (2025), with co-editors Jin-A Kang and Ghassan Moazzin.“Modern Chinese enterprise and the global economy: A historiographical essay.” Business History, special issue (2025):  1–18, with co-editors Jin-A Kang and Ghassan Moazzin.

“Wardrobe Dynamics: Cathay Pacific Female Flight Attendants’ Changing Uniform for a City in Flux,” in Postcolonial Aeromobilities:  Branding, Cultural Heritage and Tourism Imageries, edited by Bart Paul Vanspauwen & Iñigo Sánchez-Fuarros, 219–232.  New York, NY:  Routledge, 2025.

“‘Made in Hong Kong’: Deriving value from the place-of-origin label, 1950s and now,” Modern Asian Studies 57:3 (2023):  895–917. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X22000269.

“The Ongoing Business of Chinese Language Reform: A View from the Periphery of Hong Kong in the Last Half Century,” Modern China 49:4 (2023):  448–479 (with co-author Andrew D. Wong). DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004221137535.

“Hong Kong Breaking into the International League:  Cathay Pacific’s Extension to Long-Haul Routes,” International Journal of Asian Studies 20:1 (2023): 137–156. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591421000103.

“Constructing the Legitimacy of Governance in Hong Kong: ‘Prosperity and Stability’ Meets ‘Democracy and Freedom,’” The Journal of Asian Studies 81:1 (2022):43–61.  DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911821002230.

“Flexible Corporate Nationality:  Transforming Cathay Pacific for the Shifting Geopolitics of Hong Kong in the Closing Decades of British Colonial Rule,” Enterprise & Society 23:2 (2022):445–77.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/eso.2020.54.

“Making Vitasoy ‘Local’ in Post-WWII Hong Kong:  Traditionalizing Modernity, Engineering Progress, Nurturing Aspirations,” Business History Review 95:2 (2021): 275–300. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680521000210.

“Fidelity and Sacrifice: The Gender Discourse of Traders in Pre- and Post-Opium War Canton,” Frontiers of History in China 14:4 (2019):473–507. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-008-019-0024-4.

“Improvising Protocols:  Two Enterprising Chinese Migrant Families and the Resourceful Nguyễn Court,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 50:2 (2019):  246–262.  DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463419000249.

“豉油小碟裏的香港：從生曬醬油到港製頭抽” “Soy Sauce in Hong Kong:  From Sun-Dried Sauce to First-Brewed Premium” (co-authored with Sidney Cheung), 中國飲食文化 Journal of Chinese Dietary Culture 14:2 (2018): 215–238.

“From the Treaty of Nanking to the Joint Declaration:  The Struggle for Equality through State Documents,” Law & Literature 30:2 (2018): 309–329.  DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2018.1423759.

“Negotiating the Legitimacy of Governance,” in Civil Unrest and Governance in Hong Kong: Law and Order from Historical and Cultural Perspectives, edited by Michael H.K. Ng and John D. Wong, 1–7, New York, London: Routledge, 2017 (co-authored with Michael H.K. Ng).

“Between Two Episodes of Social Unrest Below the Lion Rock: From the 1967 Riots to the 2014 Umbrella Movement,” in Civil Unrest and Governance in Hong Kong: Law and Order from Historical and Cultural Perspectives, edited by Michael H.K. Ng and John D. Wong, 97–113. London and New York:  Routledge, 2017.

“‘Bat lau dung laai’: Shifting Perspective of Hong Kong towards the Vietnamese Boatpeople,” in China, Hong Kong and the Long 1970s; Global Perspectives, edited by Odd Arne Westad and Priscilla Roberts, 279–302.  London:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

“The Shifting Concept of Space and Territory in China during the Warring States Era,” Asia Major 28:1 (2015): 1–35.

Special Issue

Co-edited for Business History (https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fbsh20/67/7)

Research Projects

“Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of Hong Kong, 1930s-1998,” 2020-2024.“Bottling Goodness: Culture and Commerce in Layered Identities of Dairy and Soy Beverages along the Periphery of China under Western Influence,” 2017-19.

Teaching

HKGS1001. Hong Kong’s Long Twentieth Century.

HKGS2001. Speaking of Hong Kong:  Global Voices.

HKGS2009. We are What We Eat:  Hong Kong Cuisine in here and Abroad.

HKGS2013/LALS3008/LLAW3233.  Law, History and Culture.

HKGS3001. Hong Kong Studies Research Project (Capstone Experience).

Student Supervision at IHSS

Jiarui Wu, PhD student, IHSS, 2024 –