This subject deals with the politics of 'reading and writing' the People's Republic of China (PRC). It starts by examining the history of the PRC, from the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) rise to power in 1949 to the death of Chairman Mao Zedong in 1976. A key focus is how the early CCP leadership attempted to resolve an issue that stalks the Chinese government even today, namely, the question of how to modernise China and still keep faith with the ethical imperatives of socialist transition. In doing so, the subject examines how Western commentators and mainland Chinese scholars have chosen to evaluate the Chinese revolution in different historical periods. The subject then outlines some of the enormous changes that have taken place in the PRC since the introduction of market-based reforms in December 1978. With the introduction of economic reform, China entered the postmodern, global community and now faces similar social concerns to those that inform Western societies – inflation, unemployment, growing crime rates, HIV/AIDS, prostitution and drugs. However, following the Chinese government's brutal suppression of the student protest movement in 1989, the PRC's response to many of these issues has been accompanied by Western accusations of human rights abuses and claims that the CCP has failed to abandon the 'totalitarian' politics of the now denigrated Maoist era. The subject concludes by asking you to determine whether such claims are justifiable or whether it might be more analytically productive to read and write present-day China differently.

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