Yue Cui

Profile

I am a PhD candidate in History at the University of Leeds. My research examines Japanese imperial governance in Manchuria (1905–1945), with a focus on labour, public health, and narcotics regulation under colonial rule.

My doctoral research examines how the Manchukuo state governed and differentiated colonial populations, ranging from Taiwanese administrative intermediaries and conscripted Chinese labourers to subjects of the state opium monopoly. Drawing on multilingual archival sources in Chinese, Japanese, and English, alongside oral history collections, my research explores how colonial regimes governed through systems of addiction, labour conscription, and unequal access to medical care.

Research interests

My research interests lie in the history of the Japanese Empire and colonial governance in Northeast Asia, particularly Manchuria, between 1905 and 1945. I am particularly concerned with how imperial states governed populations through biopolitical mechanisms, including the regulation of labour, migration, narcotics, and public health.

My work explores the intersection of social history, the history of medicine, and political theory, examining how colonial regimes structured systems of control and inequality through practices of bodily regulation, medical exclusion, and fiscal extraction. I am also interested in broader questions of state capacity and regulatory governance, as well as the historical foundations of contemporary governance and geopolitics in East Asia.

Research Keywords

• Japanese Empire, Manchukuo, and colonial governance in Northeast Asia
• Narcotics policy, labour mobilisation, and biopolitics
• History of medicine, state capacity, and public health

Conference Presentations

“Governing Ambiguity: Taiwanese Migrants and the Politics of Imperial Subjecthood in Japanese Manchuria.”
18th International Conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS), Poznań, Poland, August 2026

“Visible but Untreated: Labour, Disease, and Medical Exclusion in Manchukuo, 1937–1945.”
Society for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM) Biennial Conference, University of Leeds, July 2026

“Competing Truths and Colonial Technologies: Lived Experience and Embodied Memory in Manchuria.”
Asian Conference on Asian Studies (ACAS), Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic, November 2025

“Double-Edged Affect and Embodiment: Taiwanese Migrants, Layered Selves, and Colonial Biopolitics in Manchuria.”
New York Conference on Asian Studies (NYCAS) Annual Meeting, SUNY Brockport, October 2025

Affiliations

• European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS)
• British Association for Japanese Studies (BAJS)
• Association for Asian Studies (AAS)

Qualifications

• PhD, History, University of Leeds (UK)
• MA, History, University of York (UK)
• Certificate in Public Policy Analysis, LSE (UK)