RUNDOWN:
5:45 pm               Registration
6:00 pm                Opening Remarks
6:05 pm               Presentation
6:15 pm               Fireside Chat
6:45 pm               Q&A
7:05 pm               Closing Remarks
7:10 pm               Book Signing
7:20 pm               End

Tickets are complimentary; registration is required.

Asia Society Hong Kong Center (ASHK) is proud to host a presentation and dialogue with Andrew Mertha, George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), on his latest book Bad Lieutenants: The Khmer Rouge, United Front, and Class Struggle 1970-1997.

In conversation with Enze Han, Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration of the University of Hong Kong, Professor Mertha will explore the surprising endurance of the Khmer Rouge as a political force in Cambodia for decades after Vietnam’s 1979 invasion. How did the Khmer Rouge retain power, and why were they ultimately unsuccessful in forming a legitimate governing structure?  What role did their leadership and political strategies play in their success and failures?  Join ASHK to hear from Professor Mertha and to learn more about this fascinating history.

Andrew Mertha is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies, Director of the China Studies Program, and Founding Director of the SAIS China Research Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). From 2019 to 2021, Mertha served as the Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs and International Research Cooperation at SAIS. He is formerly a professor of Government at Cornell University and an assistant professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis.

Mertha has written four books, The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary China (Cornell University Press, 2005), China’s Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change (Cornell University Press, 2008), Brothers in Arms: Chinese Aid to the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979 (Cornell University Press, 2014), and Bad Lieutenants: the Khmer Rouge, United Front, and Class Struggle, 1970-1997 (Cornell University Press, 2025). His edited volume, May Ebihara’s Svay: A Cambodian Village, with an Introduction by Judy Ledgerwood (Cornell University Press/Cornell Southeast Asia Program Press) was published in 2018.

Mertha is a Distingished Nonresident Fellow at the Centre on Contemporary China and the World (CCCW) at the University of Hong Kong.  He serves on the Editorial Committee for the Journal of Comparative Politics and has previously served on the editorial committees for The China Quarterly and Asian Survey. He is vice president of the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS), a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.  He received his PhD from the University of Michigan and is originally from New York City.

Enze Han is Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, The University of Hong Kong. His recent publications include Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia (Oxford University Press, 2019), Contestation and Adaptation: The Politics of National Identity in China (Oxford University Press, 2013), and various articles appearing in International Affairs, World Development, The China Quarterly, Security Studies, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies among many others. During 2015-2016, he was a Friends Founders Circle Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, United States. Dr. Han received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the George Washington University, and he was also a postdoctoral research fellow in the China and the World Program at Princeton University.

About Bad Lieutenants: The Khmer Rouge, United Front, and Class Struggle 1970-1997:

Bad Lieutenants is a riveting account of how the Khmer Rouge remained a force to be reckoned with even after the fall of Democratic Kampuchea—and of the men behind the movement's strange durability.

In 1979, the Vietnamese army seized Phnom Penh, toppling Pol Pot's notoriously brutal regime. Yet the Khmer Rouge did not disintegrate. Instead, the movement continued to rule over swathes of Cambodia for almost another two decades even as it failed to become a legitimate governing organization.

Andrew Mertha argues that the Khmer Rouge's successes and failures were both driven by a refusal to dilute its revolutionary vision. Rather than take the moderate tack required for viable governance, it pivoted between only two political strategies: united front and class struggle. Through the stories of three key leaders—Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Ta Mok—Mertha tracks the movement's shifting from one strategy to the other until its dissolution in the 1990s.

Vividly written and deeply researched, Bad Lieutenants reveals the powerful grip political ideology can have over the survival of insurgent movements.

Buy a copy of Bad Lieutenants from our store.

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The views and opinions expressed are those of the speakers and participants and, unless expressly stated to the contrary, do not reflect the opinion, position or official policy of Asia Society Hong Kong, its members, or its committees. Asia Society Hong Kong does not endorse or approve and assumes no responsibility for the content of the information presented.