Survey of the development of Chinese culture and society from the period of early European contact under the Ming Dynasty (1577) through modern political and economic developments in China today. Students will become familiar with social and economic traditions of traditional China, the role of central Asian populations in Chinese polity, and the conservative role of traditional Chinese bureaucracy. Pressures created by European contact, trade, technological change, and conflicts on the borders of China will be described along with centralized efforts to control and resist change. Decline of centralized power in the nineteenth century, the Republican/Nationalist revolution, the emergence of the Chinese Communist Party, and the internal and external wars from 1937 to 1949 will be reviewed. Policies and institutions of the Chinese Communist Party from 1949 through the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution will be studied along with economic, political, and military changes in the post-Mao era.
Prerequisites
Reading proficiency as established by District Policy
Student Learning Outcomes
- Describe theories of interdisciplinary social sciences to historical events and actors.
- Examine regularities in Chinese traditions and governance from prehistory to the 1630’s.
- Describe the conditions in China in the seventeenth century to Europe, including technology, military power, trade, navigation, and religious missionaries.
- Describe the contact with Europeans from the Chinese point of view including the impact of European contact on the central government in China and the efforts made by Chinese literati and the Imperial Court to understand western differences.
- Describe seventeenth century contact between Europeans and China from the European point of view, including British balance of trade with India and China, varieties of Christian missionary efforts, and competition between European powers in Asia.
- Summarize the development of the Treaty Port system in coastal China and its impact on traditional Chinese political theory and organization.
- Identify the forces toward change and modernization in China, their interaction, and the responses of the central government.
- Identify the events in China during World War II, their impact on internal conflict, and the role of international players in China at that period.
- Identify the major events in China between 1949 and 2016, including return to traditional one-man despotic rule with the philosophical veneer of “Sinified” Marxism, the rise of Mao Zedong, and changes in China since his death in