Reading about China

Reading about China

I have started looking at China in the last few years and if you are interested in looking you should consider trying to gain some background about China first, before diving deep into specific cases. So of course, you should gain some historical background, specifically, about Modern China, either from 1912 when the Republic was founded, or from 1949 when the People's Republic of China was established. After gaining more knowledge about their modern history, it would be prudent to delve into its past as I feel that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has   dramatically re-shaped China after it has come to power.

Two, while reading about Modern China, it is inevitable that you should read more about the Chinese Communist Party and specifically centred around their leaders like Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and now about Xi Jinpeng. This is critical as the internal politics of CCP are key to understanding the political of China. I found a recent book by former Ambassador Vijay Gokhale - Tiananmen Square: Making of a Protest which provides a good insight into the dynamics of the CCP, while looking at the a particular event. 

Three, it would also be worthwhile to focus on the landmark events after 1949 like the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the (Economic) Reforms Period, Tiananmen Square, and more recently the economic growth after the 2008 financial crisis. 

Four, of course, one should read about China's role in the world since 1949 and they could be focused on nuclear politics, entry into WTO, law of the seas, in the UN Security Council etc. I offered an elective titled India and China in World History since 1945 where I have compiled readings about China in different issue areas. This could serve as a starting point on different topics and you can then engage more about a topic that interests you.

Five, if one is interested at looking at Indian Expertise on China you can find several suggestions in my linked blog post whose work and commentary you can find on social media and research think tanks. 

In lieu of a final suggestion, you can find a screenshot of various resources that I follow, to learn more about specific aspects about China below. Here you will find that a portal like China Heritage provides a more historically informed analysis of contemporary Chinese politics, to the Sixth Tone which is very contemporaneous. 

I suppose that this would be a good starting point to read more about China. A book that I have found very informative about China is titled To Govern China which I have reviewed for China Report the pre-eminent journal on China published from India.

Screening Movies

I have blogged about Watching Films and I was informed by the library that they can arrange screening of movies online too, and I am planning to coordinate screening of some movies, specifically on China, and hope that many students will be able to join the screenings, and some brief discussion about the movies.