Abstract
On 22 March 2016 Eduard (Ward) Boudewijn Vermeer, sinologist and historian, passed away in Oegstgeest at the age of 72. He suffered from colon cancer. In a career that spanned four decades, Ward’s wide-ranging interests and expertise encompassed China’s economic and political development, agriculture, land and water use, energy, environment, technical exchange, and economic history.
After completing high school, Ward enrolled in Leiden University to read history. Although he enjoyed his classes and student life, it soon became clear that he needed more of a challenge. He had seen a Dutch man on television writing Chinese characters, and Ward decided that he wanted to learn Chinese too. He promptly chose sinology as his second major, and graduated in both history and sinology in 1969, after which he took up his first post as an assistant professor at the Sinological Institute, Leiden University. He obtained his PhD from the same university in 1977. Trained as a historian, he always viewed China’s development issues from a wider historical perspective.
As a child, Ward witnessed the catastrophic flood of 1953 in the Dutch province of Zeeland, and it was then that he became interested in the way people interact with their natural environment, particularly in regard to water management. His dissertation, Water Conservancy and Irrigation in China: Social, Economic and Agrotechnical Aspects, published by Leiden University Press (1977), earned him recognition in the Netherlands and abroad, and he made a name for himself as a specialist in Chinese water management and agriculture.
In the 1970s, Ward played a major role in developing the Documentation Center for Contemporary China, which was established by Erik Zürcher in 1966. The centre introduced contemporary Chinese studies into the curriculum of the Sinological Institute at Leiden University, which until then had been devoted to the study of ancient China. With this move, the institute’s research focus shifted to include contemporary China.
Ward was not only active as an academic, but also used his extensive knowledge of economic and rural development in contemporary China to further advance international cooperation. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he carried out numerous research and consultancy projects for Dutch government organizations and companies, as well as for international organizations. He conducted studies for the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and he also actively participated in various EU projects, such as the EU–China Centre for Agrotechnical Exchange and the EU–China Management School. He also headed missions in several EU programmes in China, including a dairy development programme covering 20 cities and a project on rural governance.
Responding to a new generation of students interested in contemporary Chinese economic development, Ward set up an undergraduate track in Chinese economy and business studies at Leiden University which soon became very popular. Furthermore, in 1986, in his capacity as head of the Documentation Center for Contemporary China, Ward founded the journal China Information, together with Stefan Landsberger and Woei-Lien Chong. The latter, who was the journal’s editor-in-chief during the first 17 years of its existence, fondly remembers how Ward, in spite of his busy schedule, was always willing to help out and review submitted manuscripts as well as newly published books related to his many areas of expertise.
Ward made numerous research trips to rural China, which he enjoyed enormously. He got along very well with farmers and officials in the smallest and most remote villages and townships, witnessing at close range their daily worries and decision-making. This was the kind of research he loved most: observing how communities maintain their livelihood, how they face the challenges of their natural environment and cope on a daily basis with a host of nitty-gritty technical, administrative, financial and organizational problems. Ward liked to probe into the concrete challenges of daily life in rural China, and was far less interested in abstract grand theories. It must have been clear to the villagers he met that he felt at home in the countryside, for they kept on inviting him to move permanently to their village, and even offered to build him a house.
Ward had a great, though at times sarcastic, sense of humour. Those who knew him would detect a twinkle in his eyes and a faint smile in the corner of his mouth as signs that he was joking, but others would often be taken aback by his satirical anecdotes and bald statements. On the one hand, Ward was often very generous with his time, advice and attention when colleagues, or the many young academics he mentored, came to him for help. On the other hand, he was also known for being outspoken and not very diplomatic.
In the last 15 years of his career, Ward gradually shifted his work and projects from Leiden University to other organizations, such as Wageningen Agricultural University and the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS), where as an affiliated fellow he worked on energy supply and energy efficiency issues. In 2007, he was appointed Chair Professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of Turku in Finland. One of his achievements there was the founding of a new centre for contemporary Chinese studies.
While China’s rural development remained a life-long interest, Ward ventured into many new research areas, such as China’s overseas oil investment, hydropower, energy security and environmental history. The wide scope of his scholarly research projects and his abundant energy culminated in an impressive legacy of books, co-edited volumes, and journal articles. Ward’s monographs include Economic Development in Provincial China: The Central Shaanxi since 1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) and, testifying to his love for history, Chinese Local History: Stone Inscriptions from Fukien in the Sung to Ch’ing Periods (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991). Ward also wrote an unpublished book manuscript on Chinese rule in minority regions during the Ming and Qing periods.
Ward was not only an avid skier and tennis player, he was also very fond of classical music. He enjoyed playing the piano, and for many years he was an active board member of the choir in which his granddaughter is a musician.
A few weeks before he passed on, we visited Ward at his home for the last time. He had an air of equanimity about him as he reminisced about the past, with the same characteristic sense of humour that was his hallmark. He said he was grateful for all the good things that life had given him. Ward is survived by his wife Patricia, their three children, and nine grandchildren.