I am continually being forced to reconcile my misconceptions about modern China as I advance in this course, and I really appreciate that! Specifically, I’m interested in evaluating the role of government (both Chinese and American) in 1) economic control, 2) determining social structure and 3) censorship concerning religion and a free press/media. I had taught my students that China’s model was closer to a totalitarian one. While I’ll continue to teach this structure, I’ll be sure to include the gradual softening of government control in some areas and a growing space for individualism. Also, the face of totalitarianism looks different now than it did in the 20^th century. And, I’m interested in the role of government censorship of the internet and how China may serve as both a warning and a model for the United States to curb internet extremism.

First, I didn’t realize that post 1978 China included economic revisions that allowed for greater entrepreneurship in the countryside. I was surprised to learn that this was not a top-down decision, but the result of a successful protest in Xiaogang village (Anhui province). The idea that tourists now visit and recreate the tableau of people deciding to go against the state economic policy and influence to change is surprising to me. It’s fascinating that a change in the household responsibility system caused an explosion of economic activity that further resulted in greater disposable income, entrepreneurship, individuality in fashion, leisure time, and exposure to American culture. Yet, at the same time of loosening control, the one-child policy gave further government control over primary aspects of a family’s social and economic life. Still, I wonder how my students would respond to the idea that they would be placed into a job as a result of their performance in school. I think this could lead to an interesting debate in class about the role of government in economic regulation and the purpose of our public education system.

Until reading the articles about Christianity in China, I had believed that all religion (Christians and Muslims alike) were outlawed. To read in the NYTimes article that there are more Christians than communists in China was very surprising. I wrote my college senior thesis on the relationship between Christianity and democracy movements in Communist nations particularly in Eastern Europe and Cuba. However, I was interested to see that rather being a mainline Christian denomination, many Chinese “Christians” are apocalyptic millenarians. Given the radicalism and uniquely Chinese stamp of that “Christian” ideology, it’s understandable that the Party would want to control or destroy certain sects. However, it was interesting to me that it seems to be decided on a Provincial level rather than a full-scale national war against religion. I was amused to see that a printing factory in China had printed its 125 millionth Bible, and the State was promoting Chinese Christians to read it rather than be influenced by the more extreme and occasionally violent viewpoints of other Christian sects. I’ve been reading Jonathan Spence’s “God’s Chinese Son” about the Taiping Rebellion where such an apocalyptic preacher inspired civil war that resulted in over 25 million dead. China’s been strongly negatively affected by religion and opiates in the 19^th century, so it is understandable that the Marxist warnings of “religion is the opiate of the masses” holds especially strong sway in China today. Yet, as understandable as it is for the Chinese government to want to control or curb religious extremism, I can’t help but be horrified and disgusted at the Chinese government’s use of similar reasoning to justify its genocidal campaigns and enslavement of Uighers.

Likewise, I was interested to hear about the idea of Chinese government internet censorship as being interested in curbing “horizontal spread” of ‘dangerous ideas.’ I must say that this notion seemed like a preposterous totalitarian concern until very recently. Following the Capitol insurrection, fueled by the wide horizontal spread of extremist ideas, white nationalism, Q-Anon conspiracy and false election claims, it seems that government regulation of internet speech should be a priority within the United States. I’d be curious to explore with my students what limits they believe should be placed on internet free speech and the role of the government to regulate and police it. Should the US government adopt certain aspects of the Chinese model? This would lead to an interesting debate in class. Characters such as Jing Jing and Cha Cha may be coming to an internet near us in the not-so-distant future, and surprisingly, I think I may welcome a version of them that protects Americans from the deadly spread of disinformation and violent extremism.

The rapid changes I've read and listened to so far are amazing when you think about it.  The first article and the focus of urbanization in China was insightful as we do just think of the farming history and nature of the country of China.  Oh how it changed so much in the years following Mao to even the cultural changes of the late 20th century is truly amazing.  Even looking at the clothing styles of young Chinese students are areas I like to learn about.  The use of the Internet, as stated above by Johnny Walker is also of interest to me in regards to the censorship that exists in China.  The talk of the app "WeTalk" brought this even more to life with the visual representation of the authority, the law, the police officer.  As I continue the readings, I hope to learn more about the impetus for these changes as well as the changes themselves.  I feel a bit as a novice to China as I haven't traveled to China, which many of the seminar participants have.

I completely agree with you Johnny, the lectures and readings in this class have forced to shift my perspective to what I previously knew or believed about China. I for one, also did not know how widespread Christianity was in China. It was shocking to me read that there are so many Christians found in China. I am interested and wondering how Chinese people were able to continue practicing Christianity or any religion for that matter during the period where Mao ruled China. Food for thought for sure. 

Reading the selected articles for Session 3 as I'm sheltering in place, teaching remotely from home, and seeing headlines about the World Health Organization's recent findings in Wuhan, has made me ask myself "What about COVID" at least four or five different times as I learn about social transformations in China.  For example, to what extent has COVID exacerbated the poor, rural education delivered to these "left-behind" children over the past year (or has it actually improved a bit if we are to assume that some of these families were staying at home more and engaging less in urban-rural migration? ... or is that laughable to assume that villagers might even have that privileged option?)  Has a global pandemic made it easier for the local public security bureaus to control and censor what's being cast on computer screens since they could simply close down Internet bars out of public safety?  We know that COVID has drastically decreased the mass movement of people throughout China this past week during Chunyun to bring in the Lunar New Year; what other implications is the pandemic having on the social issues we've read for this week?

I found the role of Christianity in China to be particularly interesting.  I went through my notes from a Teaching East Asia summer institute from three years ago in Boulder, CO to find a quote from Xi Jinping on religion: "We must manage religious affairs in accordance with the law and adhere to the principle of independence to run religious groups on our own accord.  The development of religions in China should be independent of foreign influence."  This seems to corroborate Anderlini's statement that Beijing is not necessarily attempting to suppress Christianity, per se, but to just bring it under control.  (This quote could also be helpful in our history classes as we bridge the past and the present through the lens of "foreign religion as a threat" throughout Chinese early modern and modern history, notably in the 19th and 20th centuries.)  If one of the four "consciousnesses" is the "consciousness of the need to keep in line," then I imagine that the plight of Chinese Christians can't help but germinate the seeds of a revolutionary spirit since their very practice may prevent them from "keeping in line," or may muddle their "consciousness of the core," which is Xi Jinping, himself, it seems.  I wonder if it's even possible for Christians in China to ever be considered mainstream?  Is there an alternative to Beijing viewing a Chinese Christian as anything than the "Other," a threat to its carefully developed and rigid social fabric?

The role of the Internet in 21st-century China is fascinating, isn't it?  First:  there are more internet users in China than there are people in the United States!  That always helps put it in perspective for me.  Second, I believe I read somewhere (I know, I know - this sounds vague) that social media, on average, fills up approximately six hours of one's day in China and that roughly 10% of that was actually exercising political ideas - the other 90% of internet activity is watching cat videos and chatting with others.  A throughline in many of these readings (and others from prior weeks) is the ubiquitous surveillance of Chinese citizens, from Xinjiang (the "most heavily monitored place in the world"), Tibet, and major urban sprawls but also down to installed cameras in rural secondary dorms to keep students in line and the potential surveillance in any given wang ba / Internet bar in China.  Again, I wonder if the pandemic has these around-the-clock Internet police working overtime since people are less likely to congregate and are taking to the web?  In any case, the threat that the worldwide internet poses to a country that continues to infuse the element of surveillance into its national identity is certainly one worth watching.

Lastly, I found the idea of a "moonlight clan" to be quite interesting.  It was briefly mentioned in the Lu and Ye article as a group of people who believe it is "healthy to eat and use up everything you have" and who value individualist material pursuits over family responsibility.  I mean ... if this isn't the antithesis of the communist ideal, what is?  I'd be curious to hear more about this sense of rebellion and how attractive it may be to villagers who seem to have "lowered their moral standards" and may be receptive to a more public resistance.

As I watched the pre-recorded lectures and read the assigned material, I kept reflecting on the ways that I could incorporate these new ideas into my everyday classroom usage.

World History:
It was astounding to me to read the "Financial Times" article wher it describes the fact that Christianity is rising in China. The article stated that, "By 2030 China will almost certainly have more Christians than any other country" which is interest to mark given that they are a communist state. One way to incorporate this into my world history classroom is by teaching my students the idea complexity. The world certainly isn't a binary system, and neither are societies. In the unit about world religions, it would be interesting to pose questions such as "Why is it important that China is projected to become the largest Christian nation on Earth?" or "How does China reconcile atheism while also being the largest religion in the world?" Moreover, the pre-recorded lectures talked about the State having 5 approved religions, one of which Christianity falls under. Therefore, that leads me to believe as to how the government will grapple with an ever increase following of Christianity if it one of the state approved religions.

Government:
The article about access to the web can be perfectly incorporated into my government classes. The articles written by the NY Times was written in 2000, so although it is a dated it provides a great insight as to the distribution of internet usage over the country of China. As the article point out, in the year 2000 50% of the internet usage was used by only 5% of the population. This population is of course concentrated in the major Chinese cities, all of which lie in the Eastern portion of the country. The Western side of China according to the article is under-developed, slow to reach the internet age. I could find an article or infograph about the US's internet usage in the year 2000 to compare the usage across the country. Students incorporate a little bit of their political science science skills by creating bar graphs, pie charts, or any other sort of visual to share with the class as to how the US compared to China in internet usage in the year 2000. I could add another layerto this by having them do research of the distribution of internet usage in the year 2021 and have them compare and contrast that data to that of the original 2000 NY Times article that is posted above.

The economic changes that have taken place in China since 1978, including the ability to make money outside of the quota --- have clearly led to a dramatic rise in the standard of living. For instance, the ability to rent a condo for five years, then purchase it shows capitalism has improved the lives of many Chinese citizens. Based on the previous lecture, it is clear this has not trickled down and around to the migrant workers as much as we would like. However, protests against chemical processing plants show there is much potential for these changes to "float all boats." Freedom of speech seems to be the last. I am suprised the government in China has been able to regulate it so much (or, at least that is the impression we get in the West). Dr. Dube noted how membership in the church dwarfs that in the Communist Party. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that many writings in the New Testament seem to echo values found in Confucionism? For instance, the Apostle Paul's instructions regarding relations between husbands and wives, parents and children, or masters and servants? The popularity of Christianity is new, but the chord it strikes might be very old (possibly reflecting the traditional values from before Mao). This is just a speculation on my part. But, it will be interesting to see how this religion will synthesize with the culture at large. 

It's very interesting to know how China has opened its economy and how the society followed suit. The latter can be observed in the rise of consumerism in China especially amongst the youth, and how they have become more Westernized. While China has already opened economcially and socially, it is noticeable that there are still limits as to how China is liberalizing, particularly in the political realm, as there continues to be censorship. And I think this is because the CPC wants to maintain stability given that they perceive some Western political values or narratives detrimental to their legitimacy. Also important to note is the fact that not all efforts to open the economy came from the Party or the State as in the case of the Xiaogang Village in Anhui Province.