#100 Introducing China’s Fall and Rise

A few things to know:

• Course is about modern China.
• We’ll be doing a lot with visual sources, and our course project will involve creating a film.
• Course portal is called Discovering History. You can access it directly. Or it’s linked through Canvas.

Three goals together:

• Above everything else, we have three essential goals, which are
  • Demonstrate fearless, independent thinking.
    • Use fresh eyes. Surprise us. Play devil’s advocate. Don’t be afraid to contradict yourself.
  • Trust and engage one another in community.
    • Listen to and affirm one another.
  • Adopt the mindset of a historian and a cosmopolitan.
    • “The past,” as British novelist LP Hartley wrote, “is a foreign country. People do things differently there.”

Partner interview/discussion:

• Ask your partner the following questions and listen carefully to the answers:
  • What’s your spirit animal?
  • Describe one thing that makes home feel most like home to you.
  • What’s one thing that inspires you and why?
  • Why should we care about China?
• Let’s go around and introduce one another, just with the first two questions.
• Open up discussion: Why should we care about China?

"How China sees the world" (Source: The Economist, March 2009).

Here are a few fun facts I can offer to answer the question:

1. Economics: According to one estimate, it is expected to surpass that of the United States by 2021. The United States has held the #1 position since its economy surpassed the British Empire, a parallel that makes some observers anxious.
2. Foreign affairs: The inaugural 2017 Belt and Road Forum might have been comically advertised at the outset as “BARF,” but when investments were announced in the range of US$4-8 trillion, you were more likely to hear gasps than laughs. (the Marshall Plan after World War II was $12 billion—or about $100 billion in today’s dollars).
3. Culture: Chinese can claim not just the most number of native speakers, it is also spoken by at least 100,000 residents in 37 countries around the world, and is increasingly sought in both developed and developing countries (one of the very first Chinese-funded high-school level language programs abroad is right down the hallway).

Narrative of China’s modern history:

I was asked once to explain all of modern Chinese history—in an hour or less. I’d like to give you a truncated version to start out class and maybe enlist your help along the way.

My talk centered on a diagram:

• It featured two lines. One that sloped downward from 1793 to about 1900 and then started tracing back upward toward the present day. I called it “history through turning points."​

• Each point or date was attached to a personal story.
  • The first example featured the Qianlong emperor, sitting understandably proud atop the apogee of Qing imperial power. He hosted George Macartney, the Irish-born earl who, a decade earlier was said to have been the first to note that Britain was starting to amass “a vast Empire, on which the sun never sets.” Neither men bent to the other’s will: this was literally true for Lord Macartney, who refused to perform the ceremonial ketou expected of imperial visitors and it was figuratively true for the Qianlong emperor who refused to grant greater market access to British traders.
• Hard to pinpoint where the lowest point ought to have been. Perhaps that’s something we should discuss.​

The Reception, a caricature of the reception that Lord Macartney received from the Qianlong Emperor by James Gillray. Wikimedia.

​If you have a question about the structure or policies of the course, please reference the Course Information page first.

Homework: Assignment #101.