H207 Modern East Asia 
Diana Lin
Spring 2006

Office hours: MW: 9-10am, 1-2:30pm, 3:45-4:15pm

Transliteration table: 

Two sets of transliterations are used for Chinese words in this course: pinyin and Wade-Giles.  The Chang book uses Wade-Giles, and the Link book use pinyin.  The former was developed by a British envoy and a missionary in late 19th/early 20th century China, a system to transliterate Chinese words into the English language.  Because its audience were Westerners, its pronunciation is Westerner-friendly.  The pinyin system was developed in China after 1958 to establish an alphabetical system for the Chinese language.  Because its audience is the Chinese, the pronunciation captures original Chinese pronunciations accurately but is not friendly to Westerners.  The following is a link of conversion between the pinyin and Wade-Giles system to facilitate our readings: Wade Giles to Pinyin conversion. 

Bibliography on modern China and Japan.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JAPANESE HISTORY UP TO 1912

Purpose of Course

This course surveys the history of modern China and Japan from the mid 19th century to the present. It covers Japan`s Meiji Restoration, state capitalism, and the Japanese development process. Empire, war defeat, U.S. occupation, and renewal in the 20th century. Japan`s rise to the front rank of the world economic powers after World War II, and its economic recession in the 1990s to the present with an evaluation of its causes and duration, as well as impact on international and especially U.S. economy. This course also surveys China`s end of dynastic rule, the rise of Nationalist and Communist parties, their alliances and struggles,the Sino-Japanese War, the social, cultural and political life in both Republican China and the People`s Republic of China. It also covers China`s economic reform in the past twenty years and the real and potential changes it has brought onto Chinese society in general.


Required Readings
Columbia University has an excellent website offering multimedia resources for both China and Japan.  Link to Columbia U's Asia for Educators.
There are four required readings which may be purchased at the IUN bookstore.

Dower, John. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. W.W.Norton, 1999.

Field, Norma.  In the Realm of A Dying Emperor: Japan at Century's End (ISBN: 0679741895).  Random House, 1991.

Chang, Yung. Wild Swans, Three Women of China. DoubleDay Anchor Book, 1991.

Link, Perry. Popular China. Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

Modern East Asian history source book is an online sourcebook that we will also use for required readings in this course.

Other useful links:

The East Asian Center at University of Washington provides many links to other Asian studies centers in the U.S.

University of California-Berkeley provides many links to other Asian studies centers in the U.S.

The following web site contains useful information of consumer goods prices in Japan: http://www.pricechecktokyo.com/

A Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilizations

You are also expected to find information from the following Japanese and Chinese newspapers:
Japan Today.
Asahi Shimbun.
People`s Daily.
New York Times International News

The following web sites are also worth visiting:
yahoo`s China site, and
yahoo`s Japan site
Japanese language and culture.
"Red Haired barbarians:" Japanese paintings of foreigners 1800-1865
At home in Japan: what no one tells you.
China and Europe, 1500-2000 and beyond.
Studies on Asia (an E-journal)
Hong Kong government documents online (1845-1941)  
Japanese Historical Maps. 
The Nanking (Nanjing) Massacre (Dec.1937-Jan.1938)
Guide to Japanese history

Course Requirements

Two take-home essays: there are two built-in paper topics that require the use of class readings plus one outside reading for each paper.  The papers need citations. There is also a monthly quiz. Each student is also required to sign up for a presentation of one session's topic, including a brief summary of the text and a question for class discussion.  You can start signing up for your presentation on the first day of class.  I usually allow only one person to sign up for one session's presentation.  Therefore it will be on a first-come, first-serve basis. There is also a monthly quiz on some of the major topics covered during the month.

Method of grading: all grades are assigned in percentages, which will be tabulated at the end of the semester and converted to letter grades. The averages of your take-home papers and of your weekly writing assignments will be taken to represent the grades for your take-home paper and weekly writing assignment. The conversion is as follows: 93-100: A; 90-92: A-; 85-89: B+; 80-84: B; 75-79: B-; 70-74: C+; 65-69: C; 60-64: C-; 55-59: D+; 50-55: D; 45-49: D-; 44 and below: F.

The grade distribution is as follows: 

Class attendance: 3 per cent (for those who miss class no more than four times. For those who miss class more than four times, they receive 0 for their class attendance)
Monthly quizzes: 15 per cent
Presentation: 10 per cent
First take-home paper: 35 per cent
Second take-home paper: 37 per cent

There is no extra credit for this course. The grade distribution is spread out among a wide range so that if you did not do well on one item, it might be compensated for by better grades from other items.

All grades will be shown in your Online Gradebook, accessible via Oncourse, under "Tools". You need to have an IUN ID and password to access Oncourse. If you do not have an IUN email account, you can set up one here at https://itaccounts.iu.edu/. Oncourse is also accessible through the IUN homepage: www.iun.edu.

Class schedule
Modern China (1840-1949): from tradition to reform and revolution.

Week 1 (Jan.9-15): Introduction to Modern China.
Website with Chinese maps: http://www.chinapage.org/map/map.html

For a brief overview of modern Chinese history, view the following link: Modern China.

Jan.9 Introduction: Modern China and Japan. Notes.

Jan. 11  Readings: China's initial attitude toward foreigners. Notes. Image of Emperor Qian Long.

Discussion question 1: If you were a leader of the U.S., how would your response to England's request for trade resemble or differ from that of Emperor Qian Long to Lord Macartney's?

Week 2 (Jan.16-22): China's defeat in the Opium War. The Opium Monopoly. 

Jan.16 Martin Luther King's Day.  No class.

Jan.18 Readings: Commissioner Lin's Letter to Queen Victoria on the Opium Trade in China. The Treaty of Nanking (1842). Notes.

Discussion question 2: Compare Commissioner Lin's letter to those of Emperor Qian Long's almost half a century earlier. Do you see any changes in the perception of the outside world? Do you think the Treaty of Nanking could have been avoided if Emperor Qian Long had agreed to trade with Britain?

Week 3 (Jan.23-29) Decisions on reform.

Jan.23 Readings: Emperor Kuang Hsu's Attempted Reforms, 1898; Imperial Edict to Abolish the Imperial Examinations, 1898. Notes.

Discussion question 3: From an American point of view, what was interesting about the reform bill of 1898?

Jan.25 Readings: Discussion of "essential" and "peripheral" cultures--the beginning of cultural borrowing. Sun Yat-sen: Fundamentals of National Reconstruction. Notes.

Discussion question 4: How do you respond to the different approaches the Chinese reformers took toward incorporating Western culture into China?

China before and after the Communist takeover (1949)

Week 4 (Jan.30-Feb.5) The status of Chinese women in the 20th century.  

Jan.30 Chinese women before Communist takeover.  Chang, chaps.1-5.  Notes.  Monthly quiz. 
Discussion question 5: How do you think the lives Chang's mother and grandmother differed from American women? Do you identify any similarity between them and modern American women, however?

Feb.1 Women and post-1949 political movements, Chang, chaps.6-11.  Notes

Discussion question 6: How do you think Chang's mother balanced her roles as a woman and a political/revolutionary being before and after 1949?

Week 5 (Feb.6-12)

Feb.5 The rise of Chinese Communism. Readings: Mao Zedong: The Early Years. Farmers and the Chinese Revolution. Notes

Discussion question 7: How did Mao Zedong compare with the Chinese nationalists discussed above?

Feb.7 The Chinese Republic, Civil War, and War against Japan. Readings: Republican China. Outline.

Discussion question 8:  How did republican China compare to our definition of a republic?

Week 6 (Feb.13-19)

Feb.13 The Cultural Revolution.  For an introduction of the Cultural Revolution, visit the following websites:
Cultural Revolution Posters
Cultural Revolution Artifacts
Virtual Museum of the Cultural Revolution
Reading: Chang, chaps.14-22.  Notes.
Discussion question 9: Is there anything in your life experience that can be compared to the changes to the Chang family during the Cultural Revolution? What were the causes for its start and its end?

Feb.15 The end of the Cultural Revolution.  Chang, chaps.23-28.  For notes: see the second half of notes of Feb.13.
Discussion question 10: How did Chang's life change and not change after the Cultural Revolution?

Week 7 (Feb.20-26)

Feb.20 Market economy,corruption, and social protest. Link, chaps.2 & 5.  Notes
Discussion question 11: Did market economy lead to greater corruption or was corruption inherent in the socialist regulated economic system?

Feb.22 Market economy and women. Link, chaps.3, 6. Notes  Online reading (for comparison and facilitating the paper): Women and the Cultural Revolution.
Discussion question 12:  Did women's status improve in the market economy compared with the earlier socialist years?

Week 8 (Feb.27-Mar.5)   

Feb.27 Market economy and rural migrants. Link, chaps.7 & 12. Notes Monthly quiz.
Discussion question 13: How do you evaluate the issue of rural migration: is that a successful solution to the perennial rural/urban gap?

Mar.1 Chinese expectations of the state and views on democracy. Online reading.

Discussion question 14: Discuss the trend of political development in post-Mao China. 

Modern Japan (1850-now): from tradition to reform through the modernization of tradition

Week 9 (Mar.6- 12)
First take-home examination due in class on Mar.12. Paper topic: Compare the degree of transformation China went through in the late 20th century with the initial goals of reform in the 19th century. How much has China changed? What areas need more/less change? Your paper should be based on the two class readings on China plus one outside source.

Map of Japan
Map of East Asia

Concepts and Usages in Modern Japanese Culture

Mar.6 Japan's opening to America. Readings: Modern Japan outline.  Commodore Perry and Japan.  Notes.

Question 15: How did President Fillmore and Commodore Perry's letters reflect the attitude of the U.S. toward Japan?

Mar.8 The Meiji Restoration. Readings: The Meiji Restoration.  Notes.

Question 16: Why did the Japanese restore their imperial system in order to modernize?

Week 10 (Mar.13-19) Spring break.

Week 11 (Mar.20-26)

Mar.20 The nature of the modern Japanese political system. Readings: Meiji charter oath and the constitution. Notes.

Question 17: Which aspects of the Japanese responses to the Western powers do you think were ingenious, and which parts were not very good?

Mar.22 Meiji, Taisho, and early Showa, society and politics (1868-1930s)   Notes.

Question 18: Did Japanese politics become more conservative or liberal in the 1920s and early 1930s? Why?

Week 12 (Mar.27-Apr.2)

Mar. 27 The "15 year war"--Japan's war in Asia (1931-45). Notes.

Question 19: What was Japan's plan for its place in Asia? Was Pearl Harbor inevitable?

Mar.29 The end of the war and defeat.  Dower, chaps.1& 2. Notes Online reading: American prisoners of war working in China under Japanese rule  Monthly quiz.

Question 20: What were the major changes in Japanese politics and society brought about by the American occupation?

Week 13 (Apr.3-9)

Apr.3 Reforming Japanese society. Dower, chaps. 6 & 8. Notes

Question 21: What reforms took place in Japan? Who were the greatest supporters of the American reform?

Apr.5 Changes in the role of the emperor. Dower, chaps. 9 & 10. Notes

Question 22: Who made the decisions on what to do with the emperor? What was the advantage to keeping the emperor in MacArthur's views?

Week 14 (Apr.10-16)

Apr.10 Evaluating the Tokyo trial. Dower, chap.15. Notes

Question 23: What were some problems caused by not trying the emperor at the Tokyo trial? and the significance of these problems for the future?

Apr.12 Okinawa and postwar Japan. Field, chapt.1. Notes.

Interview of John Dower; John Dower on occupation of Iraq

Question 24: What does the story here say about the Japanese memory of World War II on mainland Japan? and on Okinawa?

Week 15 (Apr.17-23)

Apr.17 Shintoism and postwar Japan. Field, chapt.2. Notes.  

Question 25: Did the separation of state and Shinto really take place? What is the significance of treating Shintoism as a culture and not as a religion, as one of the tourist guides did in the story?

Apr.19 The emperor and postwar Japan. Field, chapt.3.  Notes.

Question 26:What made the mayor of Nagasaki stand out and criticize the emperor? Why did Field tell the story of her uncle and aunt in the same story?

Week 16 (Apr.24-Apr.30)

Apr.24 Japan's economic takeoff. Readings: Postwar economic takeoff.

Question 27: Give some chief reasons for Japan's post WWII economic takeoff.

Apr.26 Japan's recent economic recession. Readings: Decline of the Japanese economy: a brief explanation. NYT article: Japan and China reach new understanding. Monthly quiz.

Additional readings for your reference:
Speech before the Diet by PM Koizumi, Feb. 2003.
Japan's uncertain future.
Japan Is Back
Japan American Relations.
Japanese Political Reform
Building the Japanese State

Question 28: What were the main reasons that led to the burst of the economic bubble? What measures do you think may help redress the problems?

 Second take-home paper due on May 3. Topic: Describe the process of transformation Japan went through from the 1860s to the 1980s. Do you detect any continuities? Any major departures from the past? Your paper should be based on the two in-class readings on Japan and one outside reading.