Fifty years ago, China was an isolated, impoverished nation with a state-led economy. Today, it’s a global superpower with rising economic influence in many regions of the world.
How this extraordinary change came about — and what it means for the future — is the subject of a U of T Summer Abroad course that was taught this past July in Singapore.
Entitled The Rise of China as a Global Power, the course was taught by Lynette Ong, distinguished professor of Chinese politics in the Department of Political Science and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.
A leading scholar of Chinese politics and political economy, Ong is also director of the China Governance Lab at the Munk School. She’s been teaching a summer course on China’s place in the world for many years.
This year, she taught the course in Singapore, a multi-ethnic society where nearly three-quarters of the population is of Chinese heritage. Though strained at times for political reasons, the two countries have a strong economic relationship, one that has been reaffirmed in the wake of Donald Trump’s second election.
Ong says that the Trump era has empowered China in other ways as well.
“When the United States refused to export high-tech components to China, a lot of people thought it would be disastrous for technological development in the country,” she asserts. “But the country is large enough, and has got enough engineering talent, to produce what it needs on its own. Within ten years, China has managed to turn the situation around and manufacture what it used to import.”
Apart from establishing a contemporary understanding of China’s geopolitical context, the course also delves deep into the political roots of the nation, thus giving us a holistic view of the country.
Trump’s influence has also pushed other countries closer to China. “There is a sense that things are changing,” Ong says. “If the United States shuts countries off, they will have to move closer to China.”
The course shows how China is extending its influence in regions such as Latin America and Africa, providing huge amounts in aid and critical infrastructure to the Global South.
“It is no shock that China is becoming an increasingly influential and meaningful figure in global politics,” says A&S undergrad David Zu, a fourth-year Rotman Commerce student and member of Victoria College, who previously took Ong’s course on comparative authoritarianism.
“But apart from establishing a contemporary understanding of China’s geopolitical context, the course also delves deep into the political roots of the nation, thus giving us a holistic view of the country.”
Ong says that the first third of the course concentrates on China’s recent transformation, providing a strong historical context.
Every year, I have to write the syllabus almost all over again — depending on where we are teaching the course, who I can mobilize for guest lectures, and what’s topical at the time.
“In the second and third week, we look at what China is doing in the electric vehicle sector, in clean technology and other areas involving trade and investment,” she says. This section of the course also takes a close look at the Belt and Road initiative developed by China in 2013, with the aim of investing in 150 countries around the world. These discussions are contextualized within a discussion of China’s social policies and human rights controversies.
Several guest speakers within China provided lectures via Zoom on topics such as the Chinese diaspora, the role of the foreign ministry and trade wars.
Outside of class, students spent time exploring Singapore’s cultural and political attractions. “We went on several field trips to notable locations such as the National Parliament, the High Commission of Canada in Singapore, and the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre,” says Zu.
“Apart from these structured excursions, the course also left us an ample amount of time to explore Singapore on our own. I greatly enjoyed the special culture milieu of Singapore, including its multiculturalism, high-speed transit, food hawker stalls, and tropical city design.”
While dominantly Chinese, Singapore also has sizeable Indian, Malay and Eurasian populations, making it the perfect place to study “Asia in microcosm,” as Ong says.
For Zu, this particular Summer Abroad course deftly imparted an understanding of China’s place in the world today, and “the experiential format was very memorable.
“Apart from that, Professor Ong’s extensive knowledge of China is unmatched, and her incisive questions during lectures added a thoughtful dimension of interest into the topic.”
Though the course has been offered for a long time, Ong says it necessarily changes each year in tune with the world’s volatile political and economic scene.
“Every year,” she says, “I have to write the syllabus almost all over again — depending on where we are teaching the course, who I can mobilize for guest lectures, and what’s topical at the time.”
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