As the study of the Cold War continues to move beyond its once-dominant bipolar framing, scholars have increasingly emphasized the conflict’s global, multilayered, and deeply entangled character. Asia has become central to these historiographical shifts, not simply as a geographical stage on which superpower rivalries were enacted, but as a region in which a wide range of actors—from newly independent states and liberation movements to cultural intermediaries, scientific communities, and transnational networks—actively shaped the course and meaning of the Cold War. 

Recent scholarship has demonstrated that the Cold War in Asia unfolded in a far greater variety of mediums and arenas than previously acknowledged. Cultural production, media technologies, literary circulations, visual propaganda, religious activities, international education initiatives, and environmental governance all became significant sites of ideological contestation and cooperation, revealing the extent to which the Cold War permeated daily life, social imaginaries, and institutional practices across the region. At the same time, scholars have begun to investigate overlooked or previously inaccessible networks—such as migrant communities, philanthropic organizations, student groups, and professional associations—that connected Asia to broader global currents in ways that complicate older narratives focused solely on state-to-state interactions.

For example, Hong Kong is a valuable case study/example that illustrates the complexities of a decentred and multipolar view of the Cold War. A city where multiple networks competed and interacted; where Cold War ideologies melded with discussions on decolonisation; a city where the Cold War was deeply embedded. As an example of the potential this shift in lens could bring: The intersection of global Cold War ideologies with established regional dynamics and networks can shed new light onto infrastructure and the environment, like the Lok On Pai desalter, as well as crisis management, such as the Vietnamese Boat People. Both examples reveal how Cold War networks intersected with perhaps previously unexpected areas, becoming a ubiquitous part of the lived experience in Asia.

Recently, new directions have been made possible in part by the growing availability of diverse and innovative sources. The opening of state archives across Asia, the digitization of newspapers and periodicals, the discovery of private papers and organizational records, and the incorporation of multilingual materials have all enabled researchers to reconstruct Cold War dynamics with greater nuance and precision. Furthermore, the use of nontraditional sources—such as oral histories, visual and material culture, scientific datasets, and environmental records—has begun to reveal dimensions of the Cold War that were previously obscured or neglected. Together, these developments point toward a more expansive understanding of how Cold War politics, ideologies, and imaginaries were produced, circulated, and transformed across Asia.

Against this rich historiographical backdrop, the workshop aims to bring together scholars who can push the field even further by interrogating new sites of Cold War activity, uncovering understudied transnational connections, and mobilizing innovative methodological and archival approaches. By centering Asia not merely as a recipient of global Cold War forces but as a generator of ideas, practices, and networks in its own right, the conference seeks to advance a more textured, multi-scalar, and empirically grounded understanding of the Cold War’s global history.