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This course examines how economic conditions influenced political choices during China’s quest for modernization over the long twentieth century, which spanned the late Qing, Republican, Nationalist, and Communist periods. In a series of lectures, presentations, discussions, and workshops, you will be able to explore the economic conditions that each period faced and the political debates that shaped policy decisions amid a turbulent century of war, revolution, and reform.

WEEK 1 (10 JAN):

Course Introduction

• Kent Deng. China’s Political Economy in Modern Times: Changes and Economic Consequences, 1800–2000. 5, ‘State Revitalisation and Federalism, 1850–1911’, 57–70.
• Albert Feuerwerker. ‘Economic Trends in the late Ch’ing Empire, 1870–1911’. In The Cambridge History of China, 11, part 2. Chap. 1, 1–69.
• Kenneth Pomeranz. The Great Divergence. ‘Introduction’, 1–27.

WEEK 2 (17 JAN):

The Qing Reforms

• Jack Gray. Rebellions and Revolution. 6, ‘Reform and Revolution’, 125–49.
• Dai Angang. ‘The Reform Predicament’. In China, How the Empire Fell. 1, 19–35.
• Mary Backus Rankin. ‘Nationalistic Contestation and Mobilization Politics: Practice and Rhetoric of Railway-Rights Recovery at the End of the Qing’. Modern China 28, no. 3 (2002): 315–361.

WEEK 3 (24 JAN):

The Young Republic

• Ernest Young. The Presidency of Yuan Shi-k’ai: Liberalism and Dictatorship in Early Republican China. 1, 5–26.
• Hans van de Ven. ‘Public Finance and the Rise of Warlordism’. Modern Asian Studies 30, no. 4 (October 1996): 829–68.
• Albert Feuerwerker. ‘Economic Trends, 1912–49’. In The Cambridge History of China, 12, part 1. Chap. 2, 28–127

WEEK 4 (31 JAN):

The Republican Countryside

• Richard Gunde. ‘Land Tax and Social Change in Sichuan, 1925–1935’. Modern China 2, no. 1 (1976): 23–48.
• Joseph Lawson. ‘Warlord Colonialism: State Fragmentation and Chinese Rule in Kham, 1911–1949’. The Journal of Asian Studies, March 2013: 1–20.
• Fei Hsiao-tung. Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley. London: G. Routledge, 1939. Choose one chapter and come prepared to discuss it in class.

***SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSED TERM PAPER TOPIC AND RESEARCH QUESTION BY FRIDAY 2 FEBRUARY AT 6.00 P.M.***

WEEK 5 (7 FEB):
Republican Industry

• Morris Bian. ‘State Enterprises during the First Half of the Twentieth Century’, The Cambridge Economic History of China, vol. 2. Chap. 6, 184–207.
• William C. Kirby. ‘Engineering China: Birth of the Developmental State, 1928–1937’. In Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond. Edited by Wen-hsin Yeh, 137–60.
• Parks M. Coble, Jr. The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927–1937. ‘Introduction’, 1–12; Chap. 1, ‘Origins and Development of the Shanghai Capitalists’, 13–27.

CHINESE LUNAR NEW YEAR

WEEK 6 (21 FEB):

The War Years

• Joshua H Howard. Workers at War: Labor in China’s Arsenals, 1937–1953. Chap. 1, ‘To Buy or to Build? Economic Development and the Arms Industry’, 17–48.
• Suzanne Pepper. Civil War in China: The Political Struggle. Chap. 4, ‘The Political Costs of Economic Mismanagement’, 95–131.
• William C. Kirby. ‘The Chinese War Economy’. In China’s Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937–1945. 8, 185–213.

Week 7 (28 FEB):

Transnational Business

• Murphey Rhoads. ‘The Treaty Ports and China’s Modernization’. In The Chinese City between Two Worlds, 17–71.
• Sherman Cochran. Encountering Chinese Networks: Western, Japanese, and Chinese Corporations in China, 1880–1937. Chap. 1, ‘Introduction’, 1–43.
• Christopher Rea. The Business of Culture: Cultural Entrepreneurs in China and Southeast Asia. 1, 1–31.

***SUBMIT YOUR TERM PAPER THESIS STATEMENT AND BIBLOGRAPHY BY FRIDAY 1 MARCH AT 6.00 P.M.***

READING WEEK

WEEK 8 (13 MAR):

The Soviet System in China

• Nicholas R. Lardy. ‘Economic Recovery and the 1st Five-Year Plan’. In The Cambridge History of China, 14, part 1. Chap. 3, 144–183.
• First Five-year Plan for Development of the National Economy of the People’s Republic of China in 1953–1957. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1956.
• Naughton, Barry. ‘The Third Front: Defence Industrialization in the Chinese Interior’. The China Quarterly, no. 115 (1988): 351–86.

WEEK 9 (20 MAR):

The Great Leap Forward

• Nicholas R. Lardy. ‘The Chinese Economy under Stress, 1958–1965’. In The Cambridge History of China, 14, part 1. Chap 8, 360–397.
• Anthony Garnaut. ‘The Geography of the Great Leap Famine’. Modern China 40, no. 3 (2014), 315–348.
• Yang Jisheng. Tombstone: The Untold Story of the Mao’s Great Famine. Chap. 4, ‘The People’s Commune’, 156–173; chap. 11, ‘China’s Population Loss in the Great Leap Forward’, 394–430; chap. 14, ‘The Systemic Causes of the Great Famine’, 483–522.

WEEK 10 (27 MAR):

Reform and Opening

• Ezra F. Vogel. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Choose one chapter and come prepared to discuss it in class.
• Barry Naughton. ‘The Political Economy of China’s Economic Transition’. In China’s Great Economic Transformation’. 4, 91–135.
• Andrew G. Walder. ‘Local Governments as Industrial Firms: An Organizational Analysis of China’s Transitional Economy’. Journal of Sociology 2 (1995): 363–301

***SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSED TERM PAPER INTRODUCTION AND OUTLINE BY FRIDAY 29 MARCH AT 6:00 P.M.***

WEEK 11 (3 APR):

The 1990s Transition

• David M Lampton. Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping. Chap. 1, ‘Evolution in the Revolution’, 13–44.
• Philip C. C. Huang. ‘China’s Hidden Agricultural Revolution, 1980–2010, in Historical and Comparative Perspective’. Modern China 42, no. 4 (2016): 339–376.
• Huang Yasheng. Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State. 1, ‘Just How Capitalist is China?’, 1–49.

WEEK 13 (10 APR):

China and the World

• Eduard B. Vermeer. ‘The Global Expansion of Chinese Oil Companies: Political Demands, Profitability and Risk’. China Information 29, no. 1 (2015): 3–32.
• Wang Yuhua. ‘Beyond Local Protectionism: China’s State–Business Relations in the Last Two Decades’. The China Quarterly 226 (June 2016): 319–341.
• Kristen E. Looney. ‘China’s Campaign to Build a New Socialist Countryside: Village Modernization, Peasant Councils, and the Ganzhou Model of Rural Development’. The China Quarterly 224 (Dec. 2015): 909–932.

WEEK 13 (17 APR):

Term Paper Posters and Presentations

• In this final session, you will prepare a poster on your paper and present your findings in class.
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*** SUBMIT YOUR TERM PAPER DUE NO LATER THAN 1 MAY AT 6.00 P.M.***

1. Participation (30%): You will be assessed on the basis of regular attendance, participation in class activities, and engagement in class discussions. Our goal is to make the classroom an effective place to develop a deeper understanding of the course material and sharpen your academic skills. If you need to miss class for any reason, please email me with a courtesy copy to Xiaotong in advance. Before each class, you must email your questions about the week’s readings to Xiaotong
2. Analytical essay (30%): write an analytical essay (1,000–1,500 words, double-spaced) on one of the readings to share with the class and give one thirty-minute presentation on that reading
3. Term paper (40%): a 4,000­–6,000-word project on an original topic of your choice due on 1 May

Attention is drawn to University policy and regulations on honesty in academic work, and to the disciplinary guidelines and procedures applicable to breaches of such policy and regulations. Details may be found at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/.With each assignment, students will be required to submit a signed declaration that they are aware of the policies, regulations and procedures.