GFCP 351: Chinese Politics
Course Instructor: Paige Johnson
Phone: 984-3127 (call anytime)
E-mail: johnson_paige@hotmail.com
Office Hours: T, R1:15pm to 2:30pm and by appointment
About the Course
This course is intended as a basic introduction for undergraduates to the politics of China. We will begin by examining China’s imperial system, its decline, and the rise of the Communist revolutionary movement. After this introduction, we will turn our attention to the post-1949 politics of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We will examine the thought of both Mao and Deng, the political institutions of the party-state, and the role of citizens (students, intellectuals, women, and minority nationalities). We will consider the politics of Hong Kong’s reversion to China as well as political developments in Taiwan and the implications of those developments on prospects for reunification with the mainland.
From the course, students should take away an appreciation for different approaches to the understanding of Chinese politics. Further, students should have a grasp of major Chinese institutions, their historical evolution, and the political roles and impacts of a variety of social groups.
There is no prerequisite for the course beyond a willingness to keep up with assignments and to participate actively in class!
Course Requirements
As above, students are required to keep up with reading and assignments and to participate in class discussions. Assigned readings should be prepared for the day indicated to get the most out of lecture and to be able to participate actively in discussion. Absences are strongly discouraged. In line with the philosophy of the course—that the best learning is active learning—class participation counts for 10% of the final course grade.
Students are also required to regularly follow several different sources of news on China. It is recommended that students follow China news in a major US publication (such as The Washington Post or The New York Times) as well as through various China-based sources. Suggested sources include the People’s Daily online English-language version (available at http://english.peopledaily.com.cn) and China Daily, China’s national English-language publication (also available online at http://www.chinadaily.net). Students can find further sources of news and information in the list of China-related web sites below.
On February 1st, students will submit a one-page write-up on a single issue that they will follow on an in-depth basis for the duration of the course. In this write-up, students should describe their issue, explain its recent evolution, and describe its importance for a consideration of contemporary Chinese politics. Students’ individual issues may be brought up for class discussion and will also be considered at the end of the course (as we cover contemporary political issues). Students are encouraged to share, via the course e-mail list, news stories of particular importance on their issue with the rest of the class.
The midterm examination will have both short answer questions and an essay question (there will be choice). The midterm counts for 25% of the final course grade. The exam will be held on March 8th.
The final examination will be comprehensive. It will consist of both short answer and essay questions (again, there will be choice). The final exam counts for 40% of the course grade. The exam will be held on XXXX.
Students will complete two China map quizzes, one on January 30th and one on March 1st. Together, the two map quizzes are worth 5% of the course grade.
Students will also complete two short papers/assignments for the course. First, students will complete a media assignment, due March 27. Second, students will complete individual projects on one of China’s provinces; this assignment is due April 17th. Full guidelines for the two projects will be discussed in class. Each paper/assignment is worth ten percent of the final course grade.
College of Arts & Sciences Deadlines
To add the course: February 2
To drop the course: January 31
To withdraw from the course: March 20
Required Books
Dreyer, June Teufel. China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition. No place of publication:
Longman, 2000. (Referred to as Dreyer in the schedule.)
Heng, Liang and Judith Shapiro. Son of the Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1984.
Schell, Orville and David Shambaugh, eds. The China Reader: The Reform Era. New York: Vintage,
1998. (Referred to as Reform Reader in the schedule.)
Additional required readings are on reserve at Clemons library. We will begin using these readings pretty intensively from the end of February. I encourage you to make arrangements to get the readings ahead of time.
Resources: World Wide Web
General links to scholarly resources and news about China and Comparative Politics:
Asia Society’s Asia Source Homepage at http://www.asiasource.org
Asian Studies World Wide Web Virtual Library (WWWVL) at the Australian National University at
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-AsianStudies.html
BBC Asia programming—listen to the China Service in Mandarin or to East Asia Today in English
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/asiapacific/index.shtml
China: A Country Study, U.S. Library of Congress at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cntoc.html
China Daily at http://www.chinadaily.net
China Headline Links from ChinaOnline at
http://www.chinaonline.com/roundup/headlines.asp
China Links from the University of Michigan at
http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Area.Programs/Asia/china/weblist.htm
China News Digest at http://www.cnd.org/CND-Global/CND-Global.new.html
Chinese Military Power page at http://www.comw.org/cmp/
CNN/Time/Asiaweek AsiaNow at http://www.cnn.com/AsiaNow
Constitution of the People’s Republic of China at
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/constitution/constitution.html
East Asia Center Asialinks at http://www.virginia.edu/~eastasia/easia13.html
Embassy of China to the United States at http://www.china-embassy.org/
Far Eastern Economic Review at http://www.feer.com
Foreign, Comparative, and International Resources from the Department of Political Science
at Louisiana State University at http://www.artsci.lsu.edu/poli/foreign.html
Hong Kong WWWVL at http://www.asiawind.com/hkwwwvl
Human Rights in China at http://www.hrichina.org
Human Rights Watch/Asia at http://www.hrw.org/about/divisions/asia.html
Inside China at http://www.insidechina.com/
International Affairs WWWVL at http://www.etown.edu/vl
Internet Guide for China Studies—Politics at http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/igpol.htm
Maps from the University of Texas at
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/china.html
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (PRC) at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn
People’s Daily English edition at http://english.peopledaily.com.cn
Political Resources on the Net: China at http://www.politicalresources.net/china.htm
Political Science WWWVL at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/PoliSci
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) at http://www.scmp.com
Taiwan Government Information Office at http://www.roc-taiwan.org
Taiwan WWWVL at http://peacock.tnjc.edu.tw/taiwan-wwwvl.html
Tibet Government in Exile at http://www.tibet.com/
Periodicals and Scholarly Journals
As wonderful as the web is for research, periodicals and scholarly journals still form the backbone of our academic work. Some periodicals/journals helpful for the study of China and Comparative Politics are listed below:
American Political Science Review
Asian Survey
Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs
Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars
China Information
China Quarterly
Comparative Politics
Current History
Foreign Affairs
Journal of Contemporary China
Journal of Democracy
Pacific Affairs
Pacific Review
Problems of Communism
Survival
Washington Quarterly
Electronic Communication
As part of the instructional toolkit, I have set up an electronic list for the course. Messages sent to the course list will be sent to all course participants. I will use the list from time to time to send out reminders about course deadlines and occasionally current news stories that we might discuss in class. Students are strongly encouraged to use the list as well--to communicate about issues raised in class, reading assignments, the current issues they are following, or anything else that comes to mind. Send messages to gfcp351-1@toolkit.virginia.edu for broadcast to the course list.
Course Schedule
Thursday January 18 Course Introduction
Approaches to the study of Chinese politics.
Tuesday January 23 The Chinese Imperial Tradition
Reading: Dreyer, Ch. 2.
In-class: Handout on romanization systems.
Thursday January 25 Imperial Breakdown and the 1911 Revolution
Reading: Dreyer, Ch. 3.
Tuesday January 30 The Chinese Civil War
Reading: Dreyer, Ch. 4. Also, online: Mao Zedong, “On New Democracy.” 1940. Available from
http://csf.colorado.edu/mirrors/marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1940/01.htm
In-class quiz #1 on the map of China.
Thursday February 1 The Thought of Mao Zedong
Reading: Online: Mao Zedong, “On New Democracy (1940),” skim “On Practice (1937),” “On Contradiction (1937).”
Due: Issue in contemporary Chinese politics.
Tuesday February 6 PRC Economic Policy Under Mao
Reading: Dreyer, Ch. 5 and pp. 135-144.
Thursday February 8 PRC Politics Under Mao
Reading: Time to work on Son of the Revolution—due next week.
Tuesday February 13 Political Movements: A View from the Inside, I
Reading: Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro, Son of the Revolution, pp. 3-147.
Thursday February 15 Political Movements: A View from the Inside, II
Reading: Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro, Son of the Revolution, pp. 148-292.
Tuesday February 20 Rise of Pragmatism: Deng Xiaoping
Reading: Dreyer, Ch. 6. Reform Reader, pp. 21-49.
Thursday February 22 China’s Economic Reforms
Reading: Xerox on reserve at Clemons: James C.F. Wang. Contemporary Chinese Politics: An Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. pp. 293-332.
For further reading: Reform Reader, 299-344.
Tuesday February 27 China’s Economic Reforms: the Views from the Provinces
Reading: Xerox on reserve at Clemons: Peter T.Y. Cheung, Jae Ho Chung, and Zhimin Li, eds. Provincial Strategies of Economic Reform in Post-Mao China. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. pp. 89-144, 212-250.
Thursday March 1 The Fifth Modernization: Democracy
Reading: Reform Reader, pp. 50-77, 165-185.
In-class quiz #2 on the China map.
Special Evening Session:
Monday March 5 Gate of Heavenly Peace
A room at Clemons will be reserved this evening to show the film, Gate of Heavenly Peace. After the movie, which runs about three hours in length, we will begin our discussion of the Tiananmen protests.
Tuesday March 6 Protest ’89: Tiananmen
Reading: Reform Reader, 79-102, 197-212, 415-419. Xerox on reserve at Clemons: Jonathan Unger, ed. The Pro-Democracy Protests in China. Armonk, NY: East Gate, 1991. pp. 8-58, 79-105.
Thursday March 8 Midterm Examination
Tuesday March 13 Spring Break
Thursday March 15 Spring Break
Tuesday March 20 Media and the Arts
Reading: Dreyer, Ch. 12. Reform Reader, 229-259, 271-279. Also, Xerox on reserve at Clemons: Claire Huot. China’s New Cultural Scene: A Handbook of Changes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. pp. 154-181.
Thursday March 22 The Structure of the Party-State and Citizen Participation in Politics
Reading: Xerox on reserve at Clemons: James. C.F. Wang. Contemporary Chinese Politics: An Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. pp. 71-108. Also, Tianjian Shi. Political Participation in Beijing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. pp. 34-88.
Tuesday March 27 The Situation of Chinese Women
Reading: Xerox on reserve at Clemons: Susan Perry. “Holding Up Half the Sky.” Current History. Reprinted in Suzanne Ogden, ed. Global Politics: China. Guilford, CT: Dushkin, 1999. pp. 163-167. Also, online: Information Office of the State Council, People’s Republic of China. “White Paper: The Situation of Chinese Women.” June 1994. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/whitepaper/8.html.
Due: Media assignment.
Thursday March 29 The Political Role of the Military
Reading: Dreyer, Ch. 9.
Tuesday April 3 China’s Village Elections
Reading: Xerox on reserve at Clemons: Robert A. Pastor and Qingshan Tan. “The Meaning of China’s Village Elections.” China Quarterly. 2000. pp. 490-512. Also, online: “Li Peng on Basic-level Democracy.” http://wwww.cartercenter.org/CHINA/dox/leaders/li.htm. “Jiang Zemin on Basic-level Democracy.” http://www.cartercenter.org/CHINA/dox/leaders/jiang3.htm.
Thursday April 5 Civil Society
Reading: Xerox on reserve at Clemons: Tony Saich. “Negotiating the State: The Development of Social Organization in China.” China Quarterly. 2000. pp. 124-141. Ron Gluckman. “Nature’s Friend.” Asiaweek. August 4, 2000. Vol. 28. No. 30. [ONLINE] http://www.cnn.com/Asiaweek. [accessed July 31, 2000].
Tuesday April 10 Politics and Film, I
Meet at Clemons library for Part I of Qiu Ju.
Thursday April 12 Politics and Film, II
Meet at Clemons library for Part II of Qiu Ju.
Tuesday April 17 China’s Minority Nationalities
Reading: Dreyer, Ch. 13. Reform Reader, 489-492. Also, online, skim information from two sides of the debate on the Tibet issue. For the PRC perspective: Information Office of the State Council, People’s Republic of China. “Tibet—Its Ownership and Human Rights Situation.” 1992. http://www.china-embassy.org/Press/wptibet.htm. For more on the Tibet perspective, see “The Status of Tibet” at http://www.tibet.com
Due: Province project.
Thursday April 19 The Return of Hong Kong and Macao
Reading: Xerox on reserve at Clemons: James C.F. Wang. Contemporary Chinese Politics: An Introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. pp. 189-227.
Tuesday April 24 Modernization and the Politics of Taiwan
Reading: Xerox on reserve at Clemons: Andrew Nathan. China’s Transition. New York, Columbia University Press, 1997. pp. 90-126.
Thursday April 26 The PRC and Taiwan
Reading: Reform Reader, pp. 496-501.
Tuesday May 1 Current Issues and Course Conclusions
Reading: Dreyer, Ch. 15. Reform Reader, 505-530.
Date and Time TBA Final Examination.