#106 Applying Axial Age Thought: Chinese Politics Today

Complete Unit I Assessment Planning survey (Google Forms)

Ground rules

• One ground rule for discussion of politics in this class: if you make a claim, please use “I” statements if it is your view or credit the view to another individual. If is not possible to credit a particular individual, use the smallest group possible. Examples:
  • Instead of “We can all agree the principles of laissez-faire are the best way to organize society,” say “I believe the principles of laissez-faire are the best way to organize society.”
  • Instead of “The Chinese people reject ‘Western values’,” say “Xi Jinping rejects ‘Western values’.”

Context (together):

• How might we roughly describe the Chinese political system today?
• Which terms that appear in the text should we dissect more closely? Are there any terms that do not appear in the text but that might identify to clarify our thinking?

Guided research (with a partner):

• Find a partner you have not yet had a chance to work with. Pick one of Van Norden’s three arguments about Xi Jinping: on his anti-corruption campaign, his resistance to “Western values” (particularly electoral democracy and the way human rights is commonly understood in the West), or his opposition to neoliberal economic policy. You’ll have 12 minutes total for this portion of the exercise. Take 2 minutes to write up a brief “game plan” for how you would get further information on one of these topics, and then follow that plan for about 10 minutes.
• Repeat this process in the next 12 minutes to explore how you might go about expanding the number of examples from Axial Age Chinese texts that you might use to expand your evidence and analysis. Each group should aim to be able to produce at least 1 piece of usable evidence during this timeframe.