China and the Int'l Order

China’s ascendency or rejuvenation is one of the defining political events in the 21st century. Chinese imprints expand widely on the present Liberal International Order (LIO), ranging from traditional security issues—such as military modernization, maritime disputes, nuclear nonproliferation, and cybersecurity— to non-traditional security areas, such as humanitarian intervention, climate change governance, and human rights. Will China be destined for a “New Cold War” with the US, given its national power, regime type, ideological features, and/or racial and ethnic identities? Could Beijing be accommodated by Washington to escape the tragedy of the “Thucydides’ Trap”? In this seminar, students will examine the core concepts and theories in International Relations (IR), security studies, and International Political Economy (IPE), and learn to critically apply them to current events. Importantly, students are expected to reflectively juxtapose these theoretical frameworks derived from Western historical contexts with theoretical analysis and empirical cases from Asian epistemic communities, and understand the applicability and validity of conventional IR canons, such as power transitions and security dilemmas. In essence, this course equips students with historical analogies, theoretical tools, and empirical cases to directly get China right, rather than understanding this country as an analogy to European historical experience.