4.5: Course Conclusion

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From the course by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Understanding China, 1700-2000: A Data Analytic Approach, Part 1

34 ratings

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Understanding China, 1700-2000: A Data Analytic Approach, Part 1

34 ratings

The purpose of this course is to summarize new directions in Chinese history and social science produced by the creation and analysis of big historical datasets based on newly opened Chinese archival holdings, and to organize this knowledge in a framework that encourages learning about China in comparative perspective. Our course demonstrates how a new scholarship of discovery is redefining what is singular about modern China and modern Chinese history. Current understandings of human history and social theory are based largely on Western experience or on non-Western experience seen through a Western lens. This course offers alternative perspectives derived from Chinese experience over the last three centuries. We present specific case studies of this new scholarship of discovery divided into two stand-alone parts, which means that students can take any part without prior or subsequent attendance of the other part. Part 1 (this course) focuses on comparative inequality and opportunity and addresses two related questions ‘Who rises to the top?’ and ‘Who gets what?’. Part 2 (https://www.coursera.org/learn/understanding-china-history-part-2) turns to an arguably even more important question ‘Who are we?’ as seen through the framework of comparative population behavior - mortality, marriage, and reproduction – and their interaction with economic conditions and human values. We do so because mortality and reproduction are fundamental and universal, because they differ historically just as radically between China and the West as patterns of inequality and opportunity, and because these differences demonstrate the mutability of human behavior and values. Course Overview video: https://youtu.be/dzUPRyJ4ETk

From the lesson

Module 4: Wealth Distribution and Regime Change in Twentieth Century China

4.1: Wealth Distribution and Regime Change8:59

4.2: Wealth Distribution in Pre-Revolutionary China15:01

4.3: Political Processes and Institutions of Regime Change in Shuangcheng, 1946-194812:25

4.4: Revolutionary Victims in Shuangcheng and Elsewhere9:30

4.5: Course Conclusion4:56

Meet the Instructors

James Z. Lee
Dean and Chair Professor of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences

So we come to an end of part one of A New History for a New China.

The four lectures that we have presented identify two salient structures,

education and wealth. And two different processes, political

categorization and political revolution. That differentiate the historical Chinese

from the Western experience and contemporary China from the rest of the

world. First, a government system of education

in an examination produced the Chinese social elite or these in comparison with

the historical Western elites. Were and are far more diverse and fluid

in terms of their familial social origins.

However, although the contemporary Chinese examination system in comparison

with contemporary elite Western universities.

Has created a veritable silent revolution in social mobility in China today.

We've also seen that the examination curriculum in contemporary China has not

done as well as in late Imperial China in terms of elite cultural transmission, and

cultural reproduction. Second, a government system of

categorical entitlement produced a distribution of wealth that at least in

comparison with Western distribution was and is far more egalitarian.

While both China and the West were characterized by the dominance of a small

number of Have-A-Lots. China unlike the West has far fewer

Have-Nots. In the United States, Have-Nots comprise

almost a half, 40% of the population, in China they comprise perhaps one tenth or

fewer. Third, the Chinese revolution in that

regard is not a structural bottom up consequence of wealth inequality.

But rather the top-down consequence of regime change led by the Chinese

Communist Party. In China, political revolution created

social revolution. Or revolutionaries may have evoked social

circumstances to justify political revolution.

There is little evidence that wealth inequality in and of itself created

either a revolutionary situation or a revolutionary outcome.

So then, the ironic conclusion is that of this history from below is that while our

studies of big structures. Education, wealth, power and large

processes from late imperial to contemporary times are important in

identifying what is singular about Chinese history and China.

They alone cannot explain historical change.

Actors are still important. Ideas are still important.

Politics, above all is still important. And it's the interaction of these

histories with socio-economic history that explain and create our history.

In part two of A New History for a New China, we will turn form socio- economic

history to social demographic history. To ascertain the degree to which social

stratification and even population composition in China today and in the

past. Are also a consequence of social

demographic as well as social economic processes.

Specifically, we'll turn from a four week discussion of Who Gets What to a four

week discussion of Who Survives. And by Who Survives, we mean a discussion

of inequality and population behavior. Population behavior and human

development, human development and social organization.

And above all, social organization and social stratification.

And as we shall see in part two, just as the construction and analysis of big

social science data has led to a new understanding of Chinese social history.

A similar scholarship of discovery, perhaps even a more robust scholarship of

discovery has created a new understanding of Chinese society itself.

I look forward to seeing you in part two. Thank you very much for your, your

attendance in part one.

[MUSIC].

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