Modern Chinese History

Modern Chinese History

Fall 2008
GCHI 211, 311, 411
3 Credits, 12 Weeks - Mondays, 2-5pm
Instructor: Liu Wei

Mid-19th century marks the end of China’s self-isolation. Since then China’s history has become inescapably a part of the world history. This course tackles a period during which China underwent a desperate struggle for survival through wars, revolutions, and drastic changes in political, ideological and ethical systems, including the collapse of the imperial structure under Western intellectual influences and military pressure, the “National Salvation” movements in the wake of foreign invasions, and the Communist rule following the Second World War. Emphases will be put on the origins of Chinese nationalism and the reasons for which modernity is viewed as a mixed blessing for the nation.
The second half of the semester will focus on the People’s Republic of China from 1949 until the present. Special emphasis will be on understanding the changes in China has experienced since the 1970s. In order to understand the current period it is necessary to consider the both the political, economic and ideological structures that create the context for the emergence of the marketization, privatization, globalization that we see today. Nationalism and the quest for modernity will continue to be key concepts as we examine changing (and unchanging) political, economic and social institutions.

The course will include weekly local excursions and extended fieldtrips to Beijing and rural Zhejiang. Weekly reflection papers and 2 10-page research papers (1 for each part) are required.

Assessment and Final Grade
Attendance and participation: 20%
Reflection papers: 50% (5% each)
Research papers: 30% (15% each


Schedule of Topics, Assignments, Activities
Part I
Instructor: Liu Wei

Week 1 (Sept 15-19): Clash of Empires, 1839-1911
The Opium Wars，their origins and impact on the Chinese society. The Taiping Rebellion. China’s reaction to Western intrusion. The forming of the reformist and revolutionary ideologies. The One-Hundred-Day Reform and its doom. The Boxers Rebellion. The late imperial reforms and the Republican Revolution.
Readings:
Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China, 1999, pp.145-191.
Fairbank, John K. The Great Chinese Revolution, 1986, pp.125-140.
Fairbank, John K. and Merle Goldman. China: a new history, 1998, pp.230-253.
Film: China: A Century of Revolution, parts I-III

Week 2 (Sept 22-26): Failure of the Nationalist Cause, 1911-1949
The warlords. The May 4th Movement. The birth of the Communist Party (CCP). The campaign for national unification---myth and reality of a Great Chinese Nation. Modernization under the banner of nationalism/militarism: the building of a modern infrastructure---economic growth and social/cultural achievements. Armed struggle between the nationalists (Kuomintang or KMT) and communists. Origins of Sino-Japanese hostility. The Japanese invasion. The National Front. Triumph of a peasant revolution. Who lost China?—American aids and the folly of US China policy.
Readings:
Fairbank and Goldman, China, pp.279-311.
White, Theodore H. In Search of History, 1978, pp. 66-131.
Tucker, Nancy B, ed. China Confidential, 2000, pp.11-60.
Film: China: A Century of Revolution, parts IV-VI

Week 3 (Sept 27):
Fieldtrip: visit to The Town of Japanese Surrender.

Week 4 (Sept 29-Oct 3): How the Farmers Changed China
Rural life and environmental consideration: fieldtrip to the County of Suichang.
Readings:
Hussain, Athar. "The Chinese economic reforms" in Denis Dwyer, ed. China: The Next Decade, 1996, pp. 11-30.
Liu Wei. "Environmental Protection and Political Sensibility in China", in Ricca Edmondson and Henrike Rau (eds), Environmental Argument and Cultural Difference, Oxford, 2008, pp153-176.


Part II
Instructor: Kristen Parris
Please note: each week one or more students will act as discussants for the week’s readings. On some occasions the reading load will be divided among students. Students are responsible for all announcements will be made in class.

Week Five （October 6-10）PRC: Building a Party-State
Basic institutional arrangements both political and economic, formal and informal; The “socialist transformation;” the relationship between state and society; The CCP’s development strategy and the Stalinist Development State;; Successes and failures.
Some Key Terms: Bureaucratism; civil society, clientelism, collectivization, informal politics; interlocking party-state; hukou, import substitution industrialization; Marxist Leninism; mass campaigns and mass organizations, Nomenklatura; Soviet Model; Stalinism; Stalinist Model; totalitarianism.
Reading:
Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution (1986), 273-295
Alan Hunter, Contemporary China, 99-108
Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy, 54-68
Film, China: A century of revolution, The Mao Years

Week Six (October13-17): Campaigns, Calamity and the Rise of the Reform Era.
The Great Leap Forward and its consequences for China’s development path, the emergence of leadership divisions. What was Cultural Revolution? Official history of the Cultural revolution and alternative interpretations. How history is written and revised, by whom and to what end? Why Reform? Reform from above or below?
Some Key Terms:, rural industrialization, backyard steel furnaces; Capitalist roaders, Communization, Export orientation,; Gaige kai fang, Social movement, Radicals and Conservatives, Red vs. Expert, Three lean years,Two roads. Walking on two legs
Readings:
Fairbank, (1986),296-341
Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy (2007), 55-84
Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik “In Search of a Master Narrative for 20th-Century Chinese History” The China Quarterly, Volume 188, (21 Dec 2006), 1070-1091

Week Seven (October 20-24): Reform Trajectory and Limits
The rise of the reform leadership; Ideological justifications; The unfolding of reform in two acts? Democracy Wall Movement; The 1989 Student Movement and its consequences; Finding the limits to political reform; Renewed state-building
Key Terms: civil society, civility (wenming/ 文明); democratization, getihu, Seek truth from facts; household responsibility system, decollectivization, g; sushi (素质/quality); Institutionalization
Readings：
Jack Grey, Rebellions and Revolutions, 381-399
Naughton, (2007), 85-110
Tony Saich, “The Rise and Fall of the Beijing People’s Movement,” in Unger ed. 217-237. 8-34
Kazuko Kojima and Ryosei Kokubun, “The Shequ Construction” and the Chinese Communist Party, in Bringing the Party Back In,
*Ann Anagost, “Constructions of Civility in the Age of Flexible Accumulation”, National Past-Times Narratives, Representations and Power in Modern China (1997)
Film: The Gate of Heavenly Peace
Field Trip to visit a Shequ in Hangzhou. (Time to be announced. )

Week Eight (October 27-31): Neo-liberalizing Reform:Winners and Losers
Changes in the post-6/4 era; Neo-liberalism with Chinese Characteristics? The emergence of winners and losers. The creation of of new hierarchies. Challenges to CCP legitimacy. Methods for examining history and change.
Keyterms: State Capacity; Legitimacy; Harmonious Society; Privatization, Three Represents;
Reading:
Naughton, (2007) 115- 158
James Fallows, “Mr. Zhang Builds his Dream Town,” Atlantic Monthly, (March 2007) Mr. Zhang Builds His Dream Town
Willy Lam, “Land Disputes Ignite Peasant Uprisings in Rural China,” James Town Foundation, China Briefing (April 2008)
*Qian Forrest Jiang, “Retreat from equality or advance toward efficiency: Land markets and inequality in rural Zhejiang,” China Quarterly 195 (Sept. 2008) 535-557.
Sharon Wesoky, “The Story of a Suicide and Social Change in Contemporary China,”in Telling Stories to Change the World, R. Solinger, M. Fox and K Irani, eds. 91-100.
Julien Burda, “Chinese Women After the Accession to the World Trade Organization:Ａ Perspective on Women’s Labor Rights,” Feminist Economics 13 (July/October) 259-285.
Dorothy Solinger, “The Political Implications of China’s Social Future,” in Cheng Li, ed., China’s Changing Political Landscap, 251-266
Recommended Film: Beijing Bicycle

Week Nine (Oct 29-Nov 5): The China Heritage
Beijing trip: cultural outlook---old and new. Sino-US relations
Liu Wei
Readings:
Zha Jianying. China's Popular Culture in the 1990s, in William A. Joseph, ed. China Briefing, 1997, pp.109-150.
Dawson, Layla. China's New Dawn, 2005, pp.16-32.
Lampton. David M. "Paradigm Lost---The Demise of 'Weak China'". The National Interest, (Fall 2005): 67-74.

Week Ten (November 10-15). Changing Basis for State Power
Examining institutional and ideological change as a guide to China’s future. Exploring the modalities of party state power. Considering the changing relationship between economic liberalization and political change and between state and society
Key Terms: Alternative Modernities, Corporatism, Cultural Nationalists,. Democratization, Development State, Ethnic Minorities Harmonious Society; Interest Groups, Institutionalization, Liberalism, Pluralism, The New Left,
Readings:
Zhong, “Contending visions of the Chinese State; New Liberalism vs. The New Left. Globalization and State Transformation in China, 162- 186
Daniel Bell, “ From Marx to Confucius: Changing Discourses on China’s Political Future,” Dissent (Spring 2007), 20-28
Anita Chan, “Realities and Possibilities for the Chinese Trade Union Movement” The Future of Organized Labor: Global Perspectives,” 275-304
Heike Holbig, “The Party and Private Entrepreneurs in the PRC,” in Zhong Youngnian, Bringing the Party Back In. 239-267
Joseph Fewsmith, “Chambers of Commerce in Wenzhou: Toward Civil Society?” in China’s Opening Society, Zheng and Fewsmith eds. 174-184
Jiangang Zhu and Peter Ho, “Not against the state, just protecting residents’interests: an urban movement in a Shanghai neighborhood,” in China's Embedded Activism
Peter Ho and R. L. Edmonds, eds., 151-170
Cheng Li, Ethnic Minority Elites in China’s Party-State Leadership,” China Leadership Monitor 25 (Summer 2008), 1-12
Film: Not One Less

Week Eleven (November 17-22).
Debating China’s Future, Assesing China’s Progress
Reading
Larry Diamond, “Can China become a Democracy?” @ http://www.india-seminar.com/2007/576/576_larry_diamond.htm
Minxing Pei, “Fighting Corruption，” in Cheng Li, ed. 229-251.
Cheng Li, From Selection to Election? China Leadership Monitor 26 (Fall 2008) 1-14 @ http://media.hoover.org/documents/CLM26CL.pdf
Colin MACKERRAS Xinjiang at the turn of the century:the causes of separatism Central Asian Survey (2001), 20(3), 289–303
Bergsten, et. al, eds, “China in the World Economy: Opportunity or Threat?” And “ China’s Foreign and Security Policy: Partner or Rival,” in. The Balance Sheet (2007),73-154.

Weeks Twelve and Thirteen (November 24- December 5)
Writing Weeks

Back to Course Syllabi