Course Description

This course examines China’s search for modernity from the nineteenth century to the present in a comparative East Asian context. It explores how China moved from an agrarian, imperial, and Sino-centric order toward a modern nation-state, and how this uneven and contested transformation compares with developments in Japan, Korea, and the wider region.

Modernization is examined as a historical process involving political institutions, socioeconomic change, cultural identity, ethical ideals, public life, and international order. Major topics include late Qing reforms, the fall of the imperial system, the Republican era, socialist revolution, and reform and opening. Particular attention is given to the Self-Strengthening Movement, institutional reforms, intellectual change, and the comparative significance of Japan’s Meiji Restoration.

Course Learning Outcomes

On completing the course, students will be able to:

1. Explain major historical forces shaping China’s modernization from the nineteenth century to the present in East Asian and global contexts.
2. Compare China’s modernization with selected East Asian cases, especially Japan and Korea, with attention to similarities, differences, and regional interactions.
3. Analyze modernization as a historical process involving political institutions, socioeconomic change, cultural identity, ethical ideals, public life, and international order.
4. Evaluate competing interpretations of China’s modern transformation from historical, comparative, and interdisciplinary perspectives.
5. Apply concepts from history, political thought, and institutional analysis to critically understand contemporary China and East Asia.

Offer Semester and Day of Teaching

First semester (Wed)