Henry is a DPhil candidate in Area Studies (Latin America) at Brasenose College. His research concerns the history of China and Taiwan's competition for diplomatic relations in Latin America. Before the DPhil, he completed an MPhil in Latin American Studies at Oxford and a bachelor's in Spanish and History at Yale University, where his thesis won the Spanish Department's Bildner Prize for the best essay written in Spanish. His MPhil thesis was a historical study of Panama's relations with China and the US and included 3 months of fieldwork in Washington DC and Panama spent consulting archives and interviewing policymakers. He has previously worked for an NGO in Guatemala and undertaken archival research in Peru. His supervisor is Professor Eduardo Posada-Carbó.
DPhil topic
'Choosing Between Two Chinas: A Diplomatic History of Latin America in the China Taiwan Conflict, 1960–Present'
This dissertation examines Latin America’s evolving role in the China–Taiwan conflict, seeking to explain why countries in the region have chosen either to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or to maintain recognition of Taiwan. Beginning with Cuba’s 1960 decision under Fidel Castro to recognize the PRC – the first such move in the Americas – the study traces how Latin American states have navigated the competing pressures of Beijing, Taipei, and Washington from the Cold War to the present day. Today, seven of Taiwan’s twelve remaining diplomatic allies are in Latin America and the Caribbean, making the region a critical site for understanding contemporary cross-Strait diplomacy.
Using comparative historical analysis, the project reconstructs the evolution of the 'One China' policy in the Western Hemisphere and situates Latin American decisions amid shifting global and regional geopolitical trends, including Latin America’s military dictatorship era, the fall of the Soviet Union and the coinciding global democratization wave, and contemporary US – China tensions often described as a new Cold War.
The research draws on seven months of planned fieldwork in Taiwan and in selected Latin American countries that have recently severed or retained ties with Taipei, namely the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Paraguay. This in-country research will build on two months of prior fieldwork in Panama, where archival research and elite interviews – including with three presidents, four foreign ministers, and Panama’s first ambassador to China – have already been conducted. Primary sources include diplomatic correspondence, government archives, newspapers, memoirs, and oral histories.
