6. China and the World in 1997

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we think about the position of China in the international community in 1997, focusing in particular on: (i) the return of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997, and the return of Macau in 1999; (ii) the ambiguous status of Taiwan; (iii) China’s position in the United Nations, the reasons why the PRC had to wait 22 years before their admission, and Deng’s address to the UN General Assembly in April 1974; (iv) China’s relations with other countries in 1997, especially Russia and Japan; and (v) the other steps taken by China to become a fully-fledged member of the international community, including signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the Biological Weapons Convention.

Course

In this course, Professor Frank Ching (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) explores the development of Chinese society, politics and economics during the rule of Deng Xiaoping, sometimes referred to as the ‘Opening of China’. In the first module, we think about the state of China following Mao’s death in 1976, Deng’s attempts to consolidate power, and the some of his early economics reforms. In the second module, we think about the development of the Chinese economy under Deng Xiaoping, before turning in the third and fourth modules to track the evolution of US-China relations in between 1968-96. In the fifth module, we think about political developments in China between 1979-97, before turning in the sixth module to consider China’s position in the world at the time of Deng’s death in 1997.

Lecturer

Frank Ching is a writer and university lecturer who has written and commented on events in Asia, particularly China, for many years. He worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review. He opened The Wall Street Journal’s bureau in China in 1979, after the normalization of U.S.-China relations, thus becoming one of the first four American newspaper reporters to be based in Beijing since 1949.

His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, World Policy Journal, China Quarterly, Current History, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications.

He has given speeches across the United States, including delivering the Inaugural Lecture of the Ravenholt-Severyns Lecture at the University of Washington. He was the inaugural lunch speaker at the annual Chiefs of Defense Mission sponsored by the Commander in Chief, Pacific, in Honolulu.

He received a bachelor’s degree in English from Fordham University, a master’s degree in philosophy from New York University and a Certificate in Advanced International Reporting from Columbia University as a Ford Foundation Fellow.