Area Politics A (Contemporary Chinese Politics)
Faculty
A. Takahara
Description
The main subject of this lecture is the politics and diplomacy of the People’s Republic of China since its birth to the present. A central question is how the Chinese Communist Party, while continuing its one-party rule, has and/or has not changed its ideology, organization, policy and behaviour. Of course, the changes are influenced by the international situation.
There is no doubt that China ’s importance will increase not only for Japan and Asia but for the world. It is extremely important to have reasonable and rational discussions on China based on solid facts. A serious obstacle, though, is that Chinese politics is rather complicated and not transparent. It is very difficult to study and to understand it, but it is challenging and greatly intriguing.
It is planned that the specific contents of the lecture include the following:
1. Points that require our special attention in studying Chinese politics (taking the Second Tiananmen Incident as an example)
2. Political tasks and processes during the Mao Zedong Era; Mao Zedong Thought and organisation of the Chinese Communist Party; the politics of a transitional economy; local system and central-local relations; socialist market economy; economic growth and social change; political reform; nationalism
3. Diplomacy and security policies during the Mao Zedong Era; diplomacy and security policies in the Deng Xiaoping Era; diplomacy and security policies in the Jiang Zemin Era; Sino-American relations and Sino-Japanese relations
4. Taiwan