ATS3079 The fall and rise of modern China: From opium war to opening up

The rise of China as an economic superpower since the 1980s features as one of the most startling and spectacular stories of development in human history. Modern China appears to be one characterised by contradictions and idiosyncrasies: Communist in name, but capitalist in practice; embracing of the newest cultural trends in fashion, music, media, and education yet deeply suspicious of Western ideas. Talk about greater levels of democratic participation are often smothered by powerful waves of Chinese nationalism positing that liberal ideologies are incompatible with the very nature of Chinese society.

In this unit, students will come to understand the range of explanations that have been put forward to account for the rise of modern China in the decades and centuries following its humiliating defeats in the Opium Wars of the mid-19th century. Through a close examination of key events in China's modern history as well as shifting ideas of nation, nationalism, and modernity, it furnishes students with an in-depth understanding of the modern Chinese state and its citizenry, as well as China's likely future trajectory.