Course Description

This course examines China’s rise by asking what it means to be a superpower in the twenty-first century. The course approaches superpower status as a political, economic, and ethical question: a superpower not only exercises military and economic strength, but also shapes institutions, development models, public values, and visions of world order. At its strongest, a superpower becomes the centre of a wider world order or civilizational formation, capable of organizing political authority, economic life, cultural imagination, and international norms.

The course asks how modern China moves between these different imaginaries of power as a nation-state, socialist power, developmental state, civilizational state, regional power, and possible global superpower. It examines China’s rise in relation to Sino-American relations, the crisis of liberal international order, regional order in Asia, the Belt and Road Initiative, technology and trade competition, and debates about great-power responsibility. The course encourages students to consider whether China’s rise represents a return of empire, a challenge to American hegemony, a new form of global governance, or a contested attempt to define superpower status beyond the Western liberal model.

Course Learning Outcomes

On completing the course, students will be able to:

1. Explain key concepts used to understand global power, including superpower, great power, empire, hegemony, sovereignty, international order, global governance, and civilizational centre.
2. Compare premodern and modern understandings of power, with attention to tianxia, empire, sovereignty, balance of power, political economy, and superpower responsibility.
3. Analyze superpower status as a political, economic, and ethical phenomenon involving security, institutions, development, legitimacy, and global public goods.
4. Evaluate competing interpretations of China’s possible role as a regional power, global superpower, civilizational state, or participant in international institutions.
5. Apply historical, conceptual, and comparative knowledge to discuss future scenarios for China, Sino-American relations, regional order, and world order.

Offer Semester and Day of Teaching

First Semester (Wed)

Course Co-ordinator and Teacher(s)