History Commons^™

"Chinese Military Space Power: U.S. Department Of Defense Annual Reports, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Following instructions received from the U.S. Congress in the 2000 National Defense Authorization Act, the Department of Defense prepared an annual report on Chinese military power. This report contains classified and unclassif ied editions. Documenting Chinese military space power developments was one of the provisions in this law’s authorizing language. This article will examine how Chinese military space power documents have been described by the Department of Defense during this report's existence through 2015 and detail how members of Congress and Congressional committee hearing witnesses reacted to these developments in Congressional hearing transcripts and in Congressional debate through Fall 2015.

How Modern India Looks At Its Premodernity, Ananya Vajpeyi

Ananya Vajpeyi

No abstract provided.

The Girl With The Peanut Necklace: Experiences Of Infertility And In Vitro Fertilization In China, Ruoxi Yu

Student Work

A 2014-2015 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Ruoxi Yu (Berkeley College '15) for her essay submitted to the Department of Anthropology, “The Girl with the Peanut Necklace: Experiences of Infertility and in vitro Fertilization in China.” (Marcia Inhorn, William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology, advisor; Susan Brownell, Professor of Anthropology at USML, secondary reader.)

Ruoxi Yu’s essay, “The Girl with the Peanut Necklace: Experiences of Infertility and in vitro Fertilization in China,” situates original research within the history of the one-child birth control policy and the tension between the …

Generations Apart: Cultural Revolution Memory And China's Post-80'S Generation On The Chinese Internet, Vincent R. Capone

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines how the memory of the Cultural Revolution is used on the Chinese internet by China's post-80's generation and the Chinese Communist Party to describe and highlight examples of social instability. These comparisons are representative of the broad historical narrative written by the Party which forms the basis of how China's younger generations learn about and internalize the Cultural Revolution. This study analyzes how the memory of the Cultural Revolution is held by China's post-80's generation as viewed through the lens of the Chinese Internet. Specifically, this research engages with the intended purposes of the post-80's generation for …

The Re-Emerging Dragon, Dylan Kissane

Dylan Kissane

Remarks prepared for the CEFAM China Conference, 22 January 2013.

Check against delivery.

International Order After The Financial Crisis, Harold James

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs

How is international order built, and how is it legitimate, in a world in which political and economic foundations are rapidly shifting? What are the consequences of the rise of major new powers for the structure and the functioning of the international system? Great wars or great financial crises have in the past led to disorientation about the moral foundations of society, domestically and internationally. The paper examines parallels with the Great Depression, and in particular the weakening of multilateralism and of small political units, and the strengthening of large powers with hegemonic claims. The paper then turns to an …

The Balance Of Power, Public Goods, And The Lost Art Of Grand Strategy: American Policy Toward The Persian Gulf And Rising Asia In The 21st Century, Flynt Leverett, Hillary Mann Leverett

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs

An important driver of relative decline in America’s international standing is the failure of its political elites to define reality-based foreign policy goals and to relate the diplomatic, economic, and military means at Washington’s disposal to realizing them—the essence of “grand strategy.” For several decades, American policy has been pulled in opposite directions by two competing models of grand strategy. In one—the leadership model—America maximizes its international standing by adroitly managing regional and global power balances and promoting the processes of economic liberalization known collectively as globalization. In the second model—the transformation model—America seeks not to manage power balances but …

White Snake, Black Snake Folk Narrative Meets Master Narrative In Qing Dynasty Sichuanese Cross-Stitch Medallions, Cory Willmott

Cory A. Willmott

The cross-stitch medallion in figure 1 was collected by my grandmother, Katherine Willmott, in the early 1920s when she was a missionary in Renshow, Sichuan Province, West China. Many years after I inherited it, I learned that it depicts a folk narrative called “White Snake; Black Snake” that was traditionally performed both on stage in the legitimate theaters and in Chinese shadow puppet dramas (Highbaugh n/d:6).

The story may be summarized as follows: There were two female snakes, White Snake and Black Snake, who were inseparable friends. They both changed into beautiful young women. White Snake got married and bore …

Pure Land And The Social Order In Twelfth-Century China: An Investigation Of "Longshu’S Treatise On Pure Land", Trevor Davis

Student Work

A 2012-2013 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Trevor Davis (Saybrook College '13) for his essay submitted to the History Department, “Pure Land and the Social Order in Twelfth-Century China: An Investigation of Longshu’s Treatise on Pure Land.” (Valerie Hansen, Professor of History, advisor.)

Davis' essay makes a powerful argument about the Pure Land Buddhist Wang Rixiu's understanding of Southern Song (1127-1279) society. Although Pure Land Buddhism is often thought to be egalitarian - or at least to challenge traditional hierarchies - Trevor shows that for Wang Rixiu, an egalitarian Pure Land coexists …

The Paradox Of Gender Among West China Missionary Collectors, 1920-1950, Cory A. Willmott

Cory A. Willmott

During the turbulent years between the Chinese nationalist revolution of 1911 and the communist victory of 1949, a group of missionaries lived and worked in West China whose social gospel theologies led to unusual identification with Chinese. Among the regular social actors in their lives were itinerant “curio men” who, amidst the chaos of feuding warlords, gathered up the heirlooms of the deposed Manchurian aristocracy and offered these wares for sale on the quiet and orderly verandahs of the mansions inside the missionary compounds of West China Union University. Although missionary men and women often collected the same types of …

Legacy Of Tiananmen: The Sino-Japanese Relationship Post 1989, Christine Somemiya

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis explores Chinese Communist Party's political use of history as a fuction to conduce patriotism and to legitimize Party rule. The research initially focused on how anti-Japanese sentiments have grown in China since the Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989 and after the esablishment of a new educational system in 1991. It then explores the impact of CCP's bias referral to conservative Japanese textbooks and views of history. These studies suggested that under the Patriotic Education Campagin and CCP's representation of Japanese right wing textbooks in China, the state has established methods to control the anti-Japanese sentiments to take focus away …

Uncoiling The Modern Sino-American Relationship, Amanda Mcatee

Psi Sigma Siren

For this particular paper I seek to qualify the true nature of the Sino-American relationship as it has developed over the last quarter of the twentieth century. To more fully appreciate the complex relationship that evolved between such seemingly antithetical nations, I will critically review both James Mann‘s About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, From Nixon to Clinton and Margaret MacMillan‘s Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World. This paper will specifically focus on evaluating the similarities and inconsistencies between Mann‘s and MacMillan‘s theses, elucidate the structural differences between each author‘s arguments, and …

Victor Xiong, Julia Valentine

International Faculty Researchers

Dr. Victor Cunrui Xiong, Western Michigan University professor of Chinese and East Asian history, is a Chinese medievalist by training recognized internationally for his research and publications focused on Early Imperial China, especially the Sui-Tang period.

Victor Xiong's website

The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War In The Communist World, Austin Jersild

History Faculty Publications

A reader of both Russian and Chinese, Lorenz M. Lüthi provides fascinating depth and detail to an unstable Sino-Soviet alliance shaped by strong and ambitious personalities, nationalist sensitivities, cultural misunderstandings, and the perhaps inevitable clash between two societies at very different stages in “socialist” history.

Becoming A Good Neighbor In Southeast Asia: The Case Of China's Territorial Disputes In The South China Sea, 1989–2006, Dirk Richard Morton

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Since the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between China and the ASEAN states following the end of the Cold War, Sino-ASEAN relations have widened and deepened considerably. This is surprising, considering that most ASEAN states viewed China as a revisionist power and threat to regional security during the Cold War and Vietnam and the Philippines have a history of armed conflict with China over as-of-yet unresolved territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Given the withdrawal of American military forces from the Philippines in 1992 and the steady growth of Chinese economic and military power, one might expect ASEAN's traditionally-held …

Constructing Indigenousness In The Late Modern World, Robert Cribb, Li Narangoa

Robert Cribb

Examines changing meanings of the term 'indigenous" in relation to other ideas that have been valued in various (mainly Western) philosophical system, such as priority, attachment to the land, and technical knowledge.

Totalitarian Science And Technology, Paul R. Josephson

Faculty Books

In Totalitarian Science and Technology Paul Josephson considers how physicists, biologists, and engineers have fared in totalitarian regimes. Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin relied on scientists and engineers to build the infrastructure of their states. The military power of their regimes was largely based on the discovery of physicists and biologists. They sought to use biology to transform nature, including their citizens, with murderous effect in Nazi Germany. They expected scientists to devote themselves entirely to the goals of the state, and were intolerant of deviation from state-sponsored programs and ideology. As a result, physicists, biologists, and engineers suffered from …

Japan’S War With China: Context And Stakes, Michele Gibney

Michele Gibney

The context in which Japan was drawn into war with China, and what they had at stake going in, are flip sides of the same coin. The contexts and stakes are: democratic government, will of the people, international status, foreign trade, the Emperor, and racial superiority. In the 1920’s and 30’s, Japan was losing the ideal of democracy, the desire to have democracy, and the will of the people. They were drawn into the war with China in order to reunite the citizenry and because of a failed democratic leadership being supplanted by right wing militarists. International status and foreign …

Chinese Foreign Policy During The Cultural Revolution (Book Review), Thomas D. Curran Ph.D.

History Faculty Publications

Book review by Thomas D. Curran.

Barnouin, Barbara and Yu Changgen.Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution. London: Kegan Paul International, 1998. ISBN 0-7103-0580-X

The Entry Of The People's Republic Of China Into The Korean War, Yueliang Shen

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

China's entry into the Korean War in October 1950 took both its friends and foes by surprise and quickly escalated that conflict into the first major hot war since the start of the Cold War. This thesis analyzes the Chinese decision making process and the factors that led China into the Korean conflict. Official documents, statements, and speeches of American and Chinese Communist leaders between 1945 and 1950 indicate that historical mistrust and animosity, geopolitical considerations, and a breakdown of communications all contributed to the tragic showdown that caused millions of casualties. Extensively used for this study were declassified foreign …

Lethal Laws, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

Book review of Lethal Laws, which examines the relationsip between gun prohibition and genocide in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Guatemala, Uganda, and Armenia.