IR 333, Spring 2013

China in International Affairs

Dr. Dan LynchTel:213-740-0773

Associate ProfessorE-mail:

School of International RelationsOffice:VKC 326-B

University of Southern CaliforniaHours:Wed 10:30 am - 12 pm

Los Angeles, CA 90089-0043Thurs2:30 pm – 4 pm

A NOTE on OFFICE HOURS: Because the volume of my visitors is high and unexpected meetings crop up frequently, please make it a point to schedule an appointment via email before coming in. Better for everyone that way.

Goals and Requirements of IR 333

The purpose of IR 333 is to cultivate your capacity to understandChina’s dramatically changing roles in international and world society. Up until last year, China’s economy was growing faster than that of any other major country; it has led the world in this category ever since 1979. By now, China has the world’s second-largest economy: right afterthe United States but just ahead of Japan. If current trends continue, China will surpass the US sometime in the 2020s in total economic output.

What are the implications of these stunning developments and potential developments? Would an awesomely powerful China seek to challenge the US for world hegemony? Wouldit aim instead to establish a cooperative “condominium” in which the two superpowers try to stabilize a world orderbased on market-driven economic development? How, in turn, would the US respond to a successful Chinese rise? Much could depend on whether China becomes democratic at some point in the future. What are the prospects for Chinesepolitical liberalization?

It is always possible that China will stumble on the path to superpower status: that its risewill derail. Already there is widespread agreement that the investment- and export-oriented economic development model needs a major overhaul. Were China’s rise to stall, the secondary consequences could in some ways be more traumatic for the world than if the rise succeeds. Clearly, then, getting a handle on China’s developmental trajectory isa critically important task for anyone launching into an internationally-oriented career. IR 333 will help you to achieve that goal.

Thought the bulk of the course focuses on China’s current domestic functioning and international relations—along with the country’s future trajectory—it will be necessary to spend the first three weeks introducing you to key developments in Chinese history—especially 20th century Chinese history—because China specialists argue that these developments fundamentally shape Chinese foreign policy today.

We will hold two exams in the course—a midterm and a final—and require that all students always prepare the assigned readings in advance of the lectures. Some days, in particular, we’ll ONLY be discussing and debating the assigned readings.

In addition, each class participant will—for the major research project—select a country they don’t know much about already and follow its relations with China in a focused and systematic way (primarily by using online news sources) beginning in February and continuing until the end of the term. During class discussions and especially during discussion sections, we will ask you to report on recent interactions between your country and China and what factors most cogently explain the basis of the relationship. You will need to become an expert on your country’s relations with China; and that will require—in addition to background research—that you follow news events almost every day.

OnTuesday, February 5th, we’ll ask that you turn in a 2-paged proposal of what country you wish to focus on. In the proposal, you should carefully explain why this country is important and deserves close attention. The IR 333 TA will grade the proposal and the result will count 2 percent towards your final course grade.

On Thursday, May 9th,we’ll ask that you hand in a short (5-7 paged) analytical summary of your country’s relations with China: the issues upon which they agree, the issues upon which they disagree, the “driving forces” of the relationship, prospects for improvement or deterioration, and so forth. This should be an original, analytical piece of work reflecting your serious study of the relationship over 3 months. Show us that you know the ins-and-outs; that you have indeed become a specialist who can communicate the nuances and subtleties of the relationship.

CALCULATION OF THE FINAL COURSE GRADE:

Country selection proposal (due Tuesday, February 5th):02 percent

Midterm exam (in-class on Tuesday, March 5th):30 percent

Final exam (in class on Wednesday, May 15th, from 2 to 4 pm):35 percent

Participation—in both lectures AND discussion sections:12 percent

Demonstration of expertise in your country’s relations with China:16 percent

Map quizzes:05 percent

(The 16 percent “demonstration of expertise” component will be calculated from both in-class performance directly related to discussing your country, and the quality of the 5-7 paged analytical summary you turn in on Thursday, May 9th, by 5 pm.)

EXTRA CREDIT: There are three (and only three) ways to receive extra credit in IR 210: (1) participate in TIRP; (2) participate in the JEP Peace Games; or (3) attend three pre-approved public talks sponsored by on-campus units, after each of which you would write up (in about 24 hours) a 2-to-3-paged summary and analysis. Choosing any of these options will—assuming you do a good job—result in the participation component of your final course grade being raised by one notch (for example, from a B+ to an A-). But you can only pursue one option for extra credit; your main energies should be focused on mastering the materials in the readings and lectures and participating energetically in discussions.

COURSE ADMINISTRATION: Discussion sections will be led by an outstanding Ph.D. student from the Political Science and International Relations Ph.D. Program:

This TA, you can be sure, knows a great deal about China’s international relations, and the discussion sections s/he will lead are crucial. How well you do in your section will directly count almost 15 percent toward your final course grade. Indirectly, if you don’t attend section or attend but don’t prepare the readings first, then obviously your exam performance will suffer and your paper will end up poorly conceived. The section is where—almost every week (after mid-February)—you’ll get a chance to display and test your evolving knowledge of your country’s relations with China.

The TA is primarily responsible for all first-line IR 333 administrative matters, so please go to him or her initially when administrative issues arise. You should also go to the TA first in the unlikely event that you don’t understand why you received a particular grade. TAs almost always have a very good reason for assigning a grade, so please make sure that you understand his/her rationale before coming to me about a grade concern. Over the years, I have found it to be extremely rare that a TA would fundamentally misgrade an exam. When they do make minor mistakes (e.g. arithmetical), they are always ready toadmit it and adjust the grade accordingly.

POLICY ON RECOMMENDATION LETTERS: I will consider—and usually consent to—writing letters of recommendation for any student who (a) completes two of my courses, (b) earns an A- or better in both courses, and (c) never goes online during class with their computer or telephone and never plays electronic games, etc. I’ll even write a letter for someone who gets a B+ in the first course and an A- or better in the second one, because I like to see improvement.

CHECKING THE INTERNET OR YOUR CELL PHONE IN CLASS: This is rude; you’re not learning anything; and you annoy your fellow students. Therefore, please never do it in IR 333. We will help you, because if we catch you doing it (and it’s easy to spot from the back of the room where the TA will sit), we will reduce the participation component of your final course grade by up to 50% and invalidate all extra credit. This is a promise. And please don’t assume that if we haven’t warned you, we haven’t observed it. Obviously, the only sensible course is for you to use your computeronly to take notes for IR 333. (It’s only a few hours a week!)

USC Statement on Academic Integrity

USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. Scampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A:

Students suspected of academic dishonesty will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards. The inquiry process is explained at:

USC Statement for Students with Disabilities

Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to the professor or your TA as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number is (213) 740-0776.

Books Ordered and Placed on Library Reserve

Fairbank, John K. and Merle Goldman. China: A New History, Second Enlarged Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Lynch, Daniel. Rising China and Asian Democratization. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008 (paperback edition).

McGregor, Richard. The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.

Sutter, Robert G. U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.

Course Schedule

15 January (T): IR and Studying China/Imperial Confucianism (1)

  1. John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 1-71. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

17 January (Th): The Tribute System and Use of Force (2)

a.John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 72-127. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

22 January (T): Ming-Qing Econ and the High-Level Equilibrium Trap (3)

a.John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 167-216. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

24 January (Th): Opium Wars/Imperialism/the Republican Revolution (4)

a.John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 217-53. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Michael H. Hunt, “The Crisis of the Late Qing, 1800-1912,” in Hunt, The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 29-50. (Blackboard)

29 January (T): The May 4th Movement and Rise of Modern Nationalism (5)

  1. John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 255-78. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)
  1. Michael H. Hunt, “The Patriotic Impulse, 1890s-1910s,” in Hunt, The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 53-82. (Blackboard)
  1. Robert G. Sutter, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 15-38. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

31 January (Th): Civil War and Establishment of the PRC (6)

a.John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 294-337; pp. 345-64. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Robert G. Sutter, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 39-63. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

5 February (T): Radicalization under Mao (7)

  1. John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 365-405. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Frank Dikotter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 (New York: Walker Books, 2010), pp. 127-154; pp. 245-262. (Blackboard)

7 February (Th): End of Radicalism / Normalization of US-China Relations (8)

a.John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 406-56. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Robert G. Sutter, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 65-94. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

12 February (T): Authoritarian Developmentalism:DXP and Beyond (9)

a.John K. Fairbank and Merle Goldman, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 457-71. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Robert G. Sutter, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 95-122. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

14 February (Th): US-China Relations Institutionalized (10)

a.Robert G. Sutter, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 123-168. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

19 February (T): “The Rise of China I:” Economic Transformation (11)

a.Richard McGregor, The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), pp. 194-228. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

  1. Robert G. Sutter, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 191-218. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)
  1. Gabe Collins and Andrew Erickson, “China’s S-curve Trajectory,” China SignPost, 15 August 2011, pp. 1-18. (Blackboard)

21 February (Th): “The Rise of China II:” Military Modernization (12)

a.Robert G. Sutter, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 169-190. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Behavior 1949-1992,” The China Quarterly 153 (March 1998), pp. 1-30. (Blackboard)

c.Thomas J. Christensen, “Windows and War: Trend Analysis and Beijing’s Use of Force,” in Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross, eds., New Directions in the Study of China’s Foreign Policy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 50-85. (Blackboard)

26 February (T): DISC: The Ruling Communist Party I (13)

a.Richard McGregor, The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), pp. 1-103. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

28 February (Th): DISC: The Ruling Communist Party II (14)

a.Richard McGregor, The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), pp. 104-193. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

5 March (T): MIDTERM EXAM

PLEASE REMEMBER TO BRING BLUE BOOKS!

7 March (Th): Key Concepts in Foreign Policymaking (15)

a.Samuel S. Kim, “Chinese Foreign Policy in Theory and Practice,” in Samuel S. Kim, ed., China and the World: Chinese Foreign Policy Faces the New Millennium, 4th ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), pp. 3-33. (Blackboard)

b.Alastair Iain Johnston, “International Structures and Chinese Foreign Policy,” in Samuel S. Kim, ed., China and the World: Chinese Foreign Policy Faces the New Millennium, 4th ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), pp. 55-87. (Blackboard)

12 March (T): Foreign Policy Decision-Making (16)

a.David Bachman, “Structure and Process in the Making of Chinese Foreign Policy,” in Samuel S. Kim, ed., China and the World: Chinese Foreign Policy Faces the New Millennium, 4th ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), pp. 34-54. (Blackboard)

  1. Michael Kiselycznyk and Phillip C. Saunders, “Civil-Military Relations in China: Assessing the PLA’s Role in Elite Politics,” Institute for National Strategic Studies, China Strategic Perspectives (No. 2, August 2010), pp. 1-40. (Blackboard)
  1. Linda Jakobson and Dean Knox, “New Foreign Policy Actors in China,” SIPRI Policy Paper No. 26 (September 2010), pp. vi-51. (Blackboard)

14 March (Th): Identity, Strategy, and Democratization Prospects (17)

a.Henry S. Rowen, “When Will the Chinese People Be Free?” Journal of Democracy 18(3), July 2007, pp. 38-52. (Blackboard)

b.Daniel Lynch, Rising China and Asian Democratization (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 3-22; pp. 88-149. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

c.Daniel Lynch, “Envisioning China’s Political Future: Elite Responses to Democracy as a Global Constitutive Norm,” International Studies Quarterly 51(3), September 2007, pp. 701-22. (Blackboard)

~~!!! SPRING BREAK !!!~~

26 March (T): Human Rights and Contestation Politics (18)

a.Robert G. Sutter, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 243-266. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Mary E. Gallagher, “China: The Limits of Civil Society in a Late Leninist State,” in Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Civil Society and Political Change in Asia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. 419-52. (Blackboard)

c.Kevin J. O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, “Popular Contention and Its Impact in Rural China,” Comparative Political Studies 38(3), April 2005, pp. 235-259. (Blackboard)

28 March (Th): Thought Work, Surveillance, and Social Control (19)

a.Richard McGregor, The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), pp. 229-262. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Howard W. French, “Was the War Pointless? China Shows How to Bury It,” New York Times, 1 March 2005. (Blackboard)

c.Philip P. Pan, “In China, an Editor Triumphs, and Fails: Bold Newspaper Stalled after Arrest,” Washington Post, 1 August 2004, p. A01. (Blackboard)

d.Greg Walton, China’s Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People’s Republic of China (Montreal: International Centre for Human Rights and Development, October 2001). (Blackboard)

e.Keith Bradsher, “In China, a High-Tech Plan to Track People,” New York Times, 12 August 2007. (Blackboard)

2 April (T): Constructing and Controlling Non-Han Ethnic Groups (20)

a.Gardner Bovingdon, “The Not-So-Silent Majority: Uyghur Resistance to Han Rule in Xinjiang”, in Modern China 28(1), January 2002, pp. 39-78. (Blackboard)

b.Ben Hillman, “Rethinking China’s Tibet Policy,” Japan Focus, Spring 2008. (Blackboard)

c.“Arrested in Tibet: A Young American’s Journey of Fear,” The Huffington Post, 14 August 2008. (Blackboard)

d.Nimrod Baranovitch, “Between Alterity and Identity: New Voices of Minority People in China,” in Modern China 27(3), July 2001, pp. 359-401. (Blackboard)

4 April (Th): DISC: China’s Relations with Taiwan I (21)

a.Daniel Lynch, Rising China and Asian Democratization (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 150-80. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Yong Deng, China’s Struggle for Status: The Realignment of International Relations (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008): Chapter 8 (“Taiwan and China’s Rise,” pp. 245-269). (Blackboard)

9 April (T): DISC: China’s Relations with Taiwan II (22)

a.Robert G. Sutter, U.S.-Chinese Relations: Perilous Past, Pragmatic Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), pp. 219-242. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

b.Daniel Lynch, Rising China and Asian Democratization (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 181-206. (Bookstore/Leavey Reserves)

c.Yun-han Chu, “The Taiwan Factor” [in prospects for China’s eventual democratization], Journal of Democracy 23(1), January 2012, pp. 42-56. (Blackboard)