Politics of China

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course offers a general introduction to the politics of contemporary China. After background on the imperial and Republican periods and the development of the Communist revolution, we will focus on major political events in the People's Republic: land reform, Hundred Flowers Campaign, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Democracy Wall, Opening and Reform, Tiananmen Uprisings, Beijing Olympics, etc. Then we proceed to a thematic discussion of popular participation and protest, state control, the emergence of civil society groups, and major challenges facing contemporary China. The basic objectives of this course are to provide a working knowledge of Chinese politics and to encourage a critical evaluation of the positive and negative aspects of China's socialist experiment.