Leonardo Barbosa

Profile

I am currently a PhD student of History at the University of Leeds. In 2018, I received my bachelor's degree at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, spending an abroad semester in Leeds in where I was engaged with the editorial assistance of the European Journal of Korean Studies. After that, I dedicated the next two years to earning my MPhil degree at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, in China.

In my published thesis, "From Batallón Colombia to Sixty-nine Ex-POWs: The Unforeseen Impact of Latin America in the Korean War (2021)", I explored major questions regarding the participation of Latin American countries in the Korean War through diverse types of documents. These included oral interviews with a former prisoner of war, hundreds of pages of documents retrieved from the Rio de Janeiro Itamaraty archive, important newspapers from Latin American countries, and more than 1,000 multiple-page documents from the U.S. National Archives pertaining to Latin American countries' responses to the Korean War.

From 2021 to 2023, during a period of pandemic uncertainty, I've been engaged with online Chinese language courses offered by the East China Normal University (Shanghai) and preparing the intellectual grounds for this study.

My current project explores the most important aspects of the development of cultural, economic, and political relations between China and Latin America from 1949 to 1976. While the study of diplomacy and cultural exchange between peripheral states in the Cold War has attracted some scholarly attention, there has been no attempt yet to analyse early Sino-Latin American interactions through the prisms of the Sino-Soviet split and the Sino-American rapprochement. My research addresses this inconsistency by employing underutilised Portuguese and Spanish language sources, filling the gaps in our understanding of Sino-Latin American relations.

Research interests

My main research work is currently focused on the transnational and international aspects of the Global South Cold War, specifically dealing with broader issues regarding the relationship between Mao Zedong's China and Latin Americans. Particular issues include Sino-Latin American direct diplomacy, Maoism and the Sino-Soviet split influence on global left-wing movements, and CIA-sponsored authoritarianism on the American continent.

Keywords: Cold War, Latin America, Modern China, Global South communism, Sino-Soviet split, Maoism, Third-worldism, US-backed dictatorships, Sino-Latin American diplomacy.

Qualifications

• MPhil Humanities, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (China)
• Junior Year Abroad East Asian Studies, University of Leeds (United Kingdom)
• BA History, University of Sao Paulo (Brazil)