GOVT 3967 - China Transnationalized

(crosslisted) ASIAN 3395, CAPS 3967
(GB) (CA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

A. Carlson.

China is often thought of as being isolated from the outside world. It is imagined as existing in historic seclusion, and, following the establishment of the People’s Republic, as pursuing a path of autarky. Such separation has then only been somewhat modified by the set of economic reforms that Deng Xiaoping first instituted in the late 1970s. In this lecture we will seek to turn such conventional wisdom on its head through examining the role that transnational actors have played in shaping the course of modern Chinese politics. However, the course’s primary focus will not be upon the past, but rather the present. More specifically, it will concentrate on the recent rise of a new class of Chinese transnational public intellectuals who have recently risen to prominence within the PRC. It will also seek to identify the influence such individuals are having upon not only their fields of expertise, but also upon broader Chinese debates about collective identity and the country’s place in a rapidly changing international system. Coming to terms with such issues will provide those who enroll in the class with a deeper, more nuanced, understanding of China’s rise and this trend’s implications for the rest of the world. We will accomplish this task through a combination of surveying the existing literature on China and transnational politics, and considering new theoretical perspectives on both. (IR)