[Mossy Kennedy]

One of my questions coming into the class is how relevant is Marxist ideology in contemporary China? To what degree does Marxist ideology guide state decision making? The material this week provided information around this question, without resolving the issue for me.  This tension between Marxism and the current philosophy of the state continues to draw my interest.  It is a tension between the idealistic ideology of the revolution tempered by the current pragmatic philosophy. Jeffery Bader’s article dwelt on this juxtaposition.  He points out that at the moment the Communist Party mechanism is being used to support capitalist enterprise.  ”To deal with the massive disruptions that the economic reform program will bring, on top of the array of existing problems, Xi has strengthened the role of the Communist Party as a tool of governance in an authoritarian but market-dominated system.”  This sort of paradox displays the complexity of contemporary China.

 

The Global Times article articulated a sophisticated understanding of the United States that has evolved from study and shared interactions.  I admired the long-term vision of seeing recent US policy as being an abheration rather than a reversal. There is a deliberate attempt to avoid over-reaction. The Cambell and Ratner essay discussed, “Tao guang yang hui,” the notion of keeping a low profile while making progress. This too illuminates sophisticated vision in foriegn policy.

 

While policies like the Belt and Road  initiative show links to the internationalism of Marxist thought, authoritarian domestic policies do not. It is difficult to reconcile these different directions of thinking.  Like many world powers through time, China too has its contradictions.

 

[Mossy Kennedy]

My understanding of Chinese culture has been that the elderly are respected and enjoy positions of status.  So  I was surprised to encounter the guidelines for the treatment of the elderly. Not what I was expecting.  But thinking about the guidelines, I realized they were important markers in a shifting society.  They betray the fact that they are necessary. Such things did not need to be articulated in an earlier era.  The fact that they need to be spelled out hint at an attempt to hold on to earlier value.

Attempts to control the energy of youth also caught my attention.  Not so much the timeless tension between youth and age, rather, how the vibrancy of youth that once drove the Communist Revolution now has boundaries placed upon it.  The irony of how a quality once so integral to the inception of the modern state, now is being contained.  Rather than being understood it is seen as a threat.

I was particularly interested in learning about environmental concerns in contemporary China.  There were a number of revelations in this section for me.  The details of the scale of photovoltaic production and use was inspiring.  The production and use of electric vehicles was noteworthy. The extent of planting to reduce urban heat islands was impressive.  These were things I was unaware of prior to this unit and they added to my understanding of contemporary China. I appreciated how the extensive pollution produced in the economic miracle generated an existential threat to the country.  Without access to clean, safe food and water the miracle imploded. In this process China became less of an anomaly for me and my conception of the country fell in line with many other countries.  A collection of countries unified in addressing the contemporary challenges of the environment.  I was reassured to encounter the progress being made in China.  It was not possible to overlook the environmental degradation.  They are adapting and evolving.

 

[Mossy Kennedy]

The complex impact of urbanization is what caught my attention with this week's material.  It was one of the intended results of Deng's reforms and it was necessary for the economic evolution that occurred.  Agricultural reforms nudged  unskilled laborers to cities on a scale that flooded cities with a pool of inexpensive labor.  Aiming for an export economy, state regulations favored industrial output by keeping wages low.  This step of establishing an export economy with a steady supply of low paid workers grew the economy in a way that drew even more workers from rural areas.  Existing cities burgeoned and new cities and infrastructure were built.  The success of China's economy was tied to urban growth.  The growth of cities was intrinsic to economic growth.  The material this week brought a more sophisticated analysis to the impact of this enthusiastic urbanization with a balanced perspective of some of the detrimental impacts of the process.  It captured the loss of traditional culture associated with rural areas and the gaps in culture.  Traditions are being lost.  In line with this, the alienation experienced by those living in the country, because they know they are not the favored ones, adds to the sense of discontent.  The details about the poor quality of rural education and its detrimental impact on the nation raises questions.  Since so much is geared around urban templates, schools outside cities do a poor job of educating their students.  As we saw last week, the best chances of escaping the feared middle-income trap is to  cultivate a broad base of education.  This fails to do that.  The discussion of religion and its link to cities added to the complexity of urbanization.  Those living in cities are in tune with making individual decisions.  This individuality makes control more difficult.  With so many being drawn to Protestant Christianity- more Christians than Communist Party members-the Communist Party struggles to contain one of the unintended impacts of urbanization.

[Mossy Kennedy]

I am looking forward to this course.  Already, I have been impressed with the quality and insight of what has been presented.  While most of the other teachers in the course come from Social Studies, I am coming from Language Arts.  The connection to AP English Literature has not made itself apparent yet, but I am seeing many possibilities for my Expository Reading and Writing Course.  It is a CSUComposition course that centers itself in controversial issues and argument.  The social issues encountered in the course should provide a rich source of topics to draw from.

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