Economy, Technology, and People

China Today
Friday, October 25, 2013 to Sunday, October 27, 2013

China Today

Motivation:
As global citizens, students need to have a working knowledge of other countries, which are important in shaping the corporate, social and political world. As a rising state in the world economy, China’s status in the business and in world affairs is shifting.

Course Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the course, the students will:

  1. Have a general understanding of the corporate, geo-political, cultural and social factors that define China's economic, cultural and technological landscape at the present time.
  2. Explore one of these factors in depth, through the research paper.

Textbook:
Modernization and Revolution in China: From Opium Wars to the Olympics (ME.Sharpe) June Grasso, Jay Corrin, and Michael Kort, 4th Edition, 2009. Book is currently available in the Pitt Book Center and Carnegie Melon University Bookstore. 

Description:
This short course will explore how various intersections of economy, society, and identity interact in China and in the perceived position of China as an emerging world economy. It will explore questions such as:

  • How does China's history and diversity reflect in the policies and the economy of China? In the way Chinese react with the market?
  • What are today’s challenges in attaining equity in quality of life in China? What are some of its greatest needs?
  • What are impediments to China’s economic and business growth?
  • What are the challenges of multinational firms in developing countries and how can those challenges be overcome?
  • What are some of the salient features of the U.S.-Chinese Relations?
  • How have cultural traditions and modernizations integrated in China? What have been some cultural responses to globalization?
  • What lies ahead? What are the opportunities and challenges in China’s immediate future?

Assessment:
Sample topics for term papers include:

  • Historical factors in the development of China’s market economy
  • Factors that encourage or retard technological innovation in China
  • The role of education in making China a world power
  • Financing innovation in China: foreign, multinational, and Chinese enterprises
  • Taiwan and Hong Kong: portals for investment and innovation?
  • Education and innovation in China
  • Ethnicity and educational opportunity
  • Can China’s economy sustain its recent growth rates?
  • China’s economy—communist, socialist, capitalist, or something else?
  • State planning, innovation, and the Chinese economy
  • Global forces impacting the Chinese economy
  • Global forces impacting the Chinese education system

Evelyn S. Rawski

Reccomended Readings:

  1. Meisner, M. J. (2007). Mao Zedong: a political and intellectual portrait. Cambridge: Polity.
  2. Meisner, M. J. (1986). Mao's China and after: a history of the People's Republic. New York: Free Press.

PowerPoint Presentation:
Contemporary China in a Historical Perspective

Lee Branstetter

Reccomended Readings:

  1. China’s Embrace of Globalization

PowerPoint Presentation:
Economic Transformation

Donald Sutton

Reccomended Readings:

  1. Sutton, D. S. (2005). China's Minorities, Cultural Change, and Ethnic Identity. History Compass3 (1), 1-7.
  2. Unger, J. Not quite Han: The ethnic minorities of China's Southwest. Critical Asian Studies29 (1), 67-78.
  3. Gladney, D. C. (1998). Ethnic identity in China: the making of a Muslim minority nationality. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
  4. Hess, K. (2009). China in 2008: a year of great significance. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 39-44.

Pierre F. Laundry

Reccomended Readings:

  1. Kung, J., Cai, Y., & Sun, X. (2009). Rural Cadres and Governance in China: Incentive, Instituion and Accountability. The China Journal62, 61-77.

Powerpoint Presentation:
China Today 2013 conference

Niel J. Diamant

Reccomended Readings:

  1. Michelson, E. (2007). Climbing the Dispute Pagoda: Grievances and Appeals to the Official Justice System in Rural China. American Sociological Review, 559-485.
  2. Diamant, N. J. (2000). Conflict and Conflict Resolution in China: Beyond Mediation-Centered Approaches. Journal of Conflict ResolutionVol. 44, 523-546.
  3. He, X. (2009). Street as Courtroom: State Accommodation of Labor Protest in South China. Law & Society Review44 (1), 157-184.

PowerPoint Presentation:
Law, Politics and Society in China

Elisabeth Kaske

Reccomended Readings:

  1. Bai, R. (2008). 'Clean officials,' emotional moral community, and anti-corruption television dramas. In Y. Zhu, TV Drama in China. (pp. 47-61). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
  2. Levy, R. (2002). Corruption in Popular Culture. In E.P. Link, Popular China: unofficial culture in a globalizing society. (pp. 39-56). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Minking K. Chyu

PowerPoint Presentation:
Energy Presentation

Khee Poh Lam

Reccomended Readings:

  1. Click here

PowerPoint Presentation:
The Art and Science of Eco-Development

John Helveston

Reccomended Readings:

  1. Gallagher, K. S. (2006). China shifts gears automakers, oil, pollution, and development. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
  2. Thun, E. (2006). Changing lanes in China foreign direct investment, local government, and auto sector development. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  3. Steinfeld, E. S. (2010). Playing our game: why China's economic rise doesn't threaten the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  4. Oliver, H. H., Gallagher, K.S., Tian, D., and Zhang, J. (2009). China's Fuel Economy Standards for Passenger Vehicles: Rationale, Policy Process, and Impacts. Cambridge: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University.

Michael Johns

PowerPoint Presentation:
The Modern Chinese Consumer

Tina Phillips Johnson

PowerPoint Presentation:
China Today: Health Transitions

Frayda Cohen

Reccomended Readings:

  • “China’s Leftover Women”
  1. NY Times
  2. CNN
  • China’s “One Child” Policy
  1. BBC
  2. PBS