A specialist on Chinese history, Gang Zhao worked on research and exhibitions related to late imperial China in the National Palace Museum in 1989 to 1997 before coming to the United States. His first book, the Qing Opening to the Ocean: Chinese Maritime Policy, 1684-1757 systematically explores how the interactions of global and local factors drove China to open its gates to the outside world. Now he is working on his second project on the formation of modern Chinese national identity as a multi-ethnic state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He teaches courses on imperial and modern China, Japanese history, modern East Asia, and Gender and Culture in China.