HPR115

HPR115: Made in China

"Let China Sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world" Napoleon

Syllabus

Overview

It was not hard to get swept up in the Internet hype of the 1990s, and it is certainly not difficult to get swept away by the China hype of the early 2000s. Business Week, in 1995, carried a cover story "The Web Changes Everything," while a decade later in 2006 we are reading in the New York Times about "The World According to China." We are in the midst of something very BIG, and China is part of the BIG story, which is why we are here. This course has been designed as a guide to the emerging "new world order" and the role China will play in it. As we look forward we will look through the lens of economics since the way a society organizes its economy will continue to have an enormous impact on what the world will be in 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now. We do this by first looking backwards at China's history and then at the most important drivers of future change. We end the course with a discussion of the link between China's and America's future, and what that will mean to you as you head out there into that real world.

Goals

As you read the course goals look to see how they correspond with those that you have for the course. This course has been designed so that when students have completed this course they should be able to:

communicate ideas in both verbal and written form
use excel and PPT to manage quantitative data and make effective presentations
more effectively read articles in the business press and in magazines and journals such as The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly and Foreign Affairs
describe the role geography has played in China's past

identify key events / people / policies in China's past

demonstrate an understanding of the role of prices in an economy and use the S&D model of prices to explain past changes in prices and formulate 'forecasts' for prices

demonstrate an understanding of opportunity cost and be able to use it to explain the "theoretical" justification for international trade (comparative advantage)

describe China's history of economic growth and the role of public policies on this pattern

describe the pattern of international trade and the role it has played in China's economic growth

describe the emergence of the international monetary system and use the model of exchange rates to explain / forecast movements in currency values

find data on international trade and payments balances and describe the changing US international position and China's role in the change

identify the key drivers to change and describe how they have influenced China's recent growth and how they are likely to influence its future

forecast China's future and its relationship to you

Structure

For most of you this course will be very different from what you are used to because much of the material is on-line which will require a little adjustment in how you work during the semester. It will also require you to use Web CT, an interface between you and the material. Once you are into Web CT you will find the following parts to the course that can be accessed from the home page. Each of these links is explained briefly below.

This Syllabus should be read since this is the "contract" where you will find the course requirements, but you know that since you are reading this.

The Schedule page should be monitored regularly because this is where you will find the daily schedule of readings and assignments as well as links to that material. This is the driver for the course so I would suggest you use this as the page you log onto on a regular basis.

The Mail and Discussion links should also be checked on a regular basis since this will be used as a means of getting information to you regarding the course. You should use web CT email to get in touch with me rather than my regular email and you should monitor the Class Info discussion regularly since this is where any important information of schedule changes will be posted. This is also where you will find the links to the class discussions that will link you to what will look a little bit like a blog for the course. China tends to show up in the news frequently and during the semester there will be some ongoing debates on important issues. During the semester you will see my postings of articles in the FYI discussions, and I encourage you to post anything you find that you think is interesting. There are also discussion sections for the major sections of the course and this is where information relevant to those section s will be posted.

During this semester the Honors Department is sponsoring a colloquium "China Rising" and you are encouraged to attend all of the public lecture series on Tuesday evenings. Everyone will be responsible for attending five of the semester lectures and the schedule appears below.

The China Reading List is a list of a good deal of what I have read about China in the past few years. This is a work in progress and will change regularly.

The News page links you to an index of newspapers and magazines while the Journals page links you to some Research Institute pages as well as some of the Federal Reserve Bank pages.

The Data Sources page links you to an index of sources of economic data and information.

Requirements and Evaluation

The success of the course depends upon the contributions of everyone, and there will be many opportunities to contribute during the semester. You will see that for each class you will be responsible for some readings that will be the basis of classroom work. Some of the work will be discussions and everyone will be expected to make meaningful contributions to these discussions. There will also be numerous written or verbal presentations - so be sure to read the assignments carefully to know what are the "deliverables" for each class. It is your responsibility to be prepared. There will also be one semester exam and a final project. The contributions of these components in the final grade are listed below.

Semester assignments	30%
Final project	25%
Exam	30%
Class participation/ Discussions/ Colloquium	15%

Attendance also matters since it is difficult to participate without being in class. You are subject to a penalty of one grade point for every absence after you have used up your three "personal" days. Use them wisely.

Readings

There is no shortage of books and articles on China, and in this course you will be required to read only three of them - although you are certainly encouraged to read more. There are two books that all of you are required to purchase, and I suggest you use one of the online bookstores. The two books are C. Fred Bergsten, Bates Gill, Nicholas R. Lardy, and Derek Mitchell, China The Balance Sheet: What the World Needs to Know Now About the Emerging Superpower (Institute International Economy) 2006 and James Kynge, China shakes the world, Houghton Mifflin 2006. You are also responsible for reading one of the following which will be the basis for your final project, and you will need to have made your choice by the time of the first exam - and you should also have the book by then.

Suzanne Berger, How we compete, Currency Book 2005

Tim Clissold, Mr. China, Harper Business, 2005

Ted Fishman, China, Inc., Scribner 2005

John Pomret, Chinese Lessons, Henry Holt & Company 2006

Clyde Prestowitz, Three billion new capitalists, Basic Books 2005

Andrew Ross, Fast Boat to China, Pantheon Books 2006

Oded Shenkear, The Chinese Century, Wharton Scholl Publishing 2005

Susan Shirk, China: Fragile superpower, Oxford 2007

In addition to these books there will be a few articles and chapters from other books. You will find links to some, and others are posted on URI's online reserves. You can find the online reserves at the Helin site that is on the URI Library web site. Once there all you need to do is search for my courses by instructor's name and you will find the list of articles. To access the articles you will need your students ID because you will need to read the bar code if you are off campus. And you will need to get your ID validated to use the online reserves by taking it to the circulation desk at the library.

Fall 2007: China Rising

Schedule:

September 18: Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History, Yale University: TBA

September 25:Yong Deng, U.S. Naval Academy: China Changes the World: Rising Challenges Ahead

October 2: David Sanger, New York Times: China and Northeast Asian security

October 9: Judith Shapiro, American University: As China Goes, So Goes the Planet: China's Environmental Challenges in International Context

October16: Orville Schell, Dean, Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley; Director, Center on US-China Relations, Asia Society: How Should We Look at China?

October 23: Xu Lin, General Director, National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language: Building Confucius Institutes for a Harmonious and Peaceful World

October 30: Robert Ross, Director of the International Studies Stream, Clark University, Sweatshops in China and the "Race to the Bottom" in Global Labor Standards

November 6: Lien Chan, former chairman of Kuomintang and former Vice President, Taiwan; China's Rise and Peace and Development in East Asia

November 13:Xu Wenli, Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, and exiled dissident: Dissidents and Democracy

November 20: Panel, China in the Global Economy: Zhang Yixing, Shanghai Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Commission; Zhou Hanmin, Shanghai World Expo; George Shuster, CEO, Cranston Print Works; moderated by Mark Higgins, Dean, URI College of Business Administration

December 4: Panel, Doing Business in China: Alfred Verrecchia, CEO, Hasbro; Paul Zheng, CEO, PDK Worldwide Enterprises; William J. Flynn ‘74, President and CEO, Atlas Air

December 11: Peng Xiaolian, film director: The Changing Role of Women in Contemporary China