New England China Seminar

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
New England China Seminar
Location: CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street, Room S153, Cambridge
5:15 pm Lecture
The Famine of the Great Leap Forward: Assessing Blame
 Felix Wemheuer, Assistant Professor, University of Vienna and Visiting Scholar,
Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

About the talk: In the aftermath of the famine, in 1962 Mao Zedong took formal responsibility for the failure of the Great Leap Forward in the name of the central government. Thousands of local cadres were made scapegoats and were punished. Professor Wemheuer focused on the question of how the different levels of the Chinese state–the central government, the province, and the county–have dealt with the question of responsibility for the famine. The official explanation for the failure of the Great Leap was compared to unofficial memories of intellectuals, local cadres, and villagers.

About the speaker: Felix Wemheuer received his MA in the Politics of East Asia from Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany. From 2000 to 2002, he studies at the Institute for CCP History at the People's University of China, Beijing. During that time, he conducted field studies in villages in Henan regarding the Great Leap Forward. He received his PhD from the University of Vienna in 2006, where he is currently an assistant professor. He teaches courses on post-1949 Chinese history, peasants, Mao Zedong thoughts, and sexuality.

7:30 pm Lecture
Increasing U.S.-China Cooperation to Address Global Climate Change
Kenneth Lieberthal, Visiting Scholar in Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution;
Professor of Political Science and Business Administration, University Michigan

About the talk: China and the United States are the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gasses, each accounting for over 20% of global emissions. Each country’s approach to this issue to date has played negatively into the politics of climate change in the other capital. Barack Obama will seek major changes in the US approach and will want to forge significant cooperative ties with China to address climate change. Professor Lieberthal addressed the politics in both Beijing and Washington of developing large-scale US-China cooperation on climate change and suggests ways to reduce the political obstacles to such cooperation.

About the speaker: Kenneth Lieberthal is a Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies, the Brookings Institution for the 2008-2009. He holds several positions at the University of Michigan: William Davidson Professor of Business Administration at the Ross School of Business; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Political Science, Distinguished Fellow and Director for China at the William Davidson Institute; and Faculty Associate of the Center for Chinese Studies. He has been on the Michigan faculty since 1983. He has a BA from Dartmouth College and two MAs and a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.

Dr. Lieberthal served as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Asia on the National Security Council from August 1998 to October 2000. His government responsibilities encompassed American policy toward all issues involving Northeast, East, and Southeast Asia.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009
New England China Seminar
5:15 pm Lecture
Surviving 1989: The Exile Experience of Three Tiananmen Student Leaders
Rowena He, Postdoctoral Fellow, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Visiting Scholar, Fairbank Center, Harvard University

About the Talk: Dr. He’s talk was based on her dissertation on the political socialization experiences of three Tiananmen student leaders over two continents before and after Tiananmen. Drawing on data collected through in-depth interviews, group discussions, and collaborative work over the years with these student leaders of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, Dr. He explored how their political ideals and personal values were shaped by institutionalized education and various socialization agents in China, led to action and punishment, and were revised under the challenges of changing conditions in exile. She discussed what she terms the “exile syndrome" of the three participants and the "betrayal of loyalty" they have sensed in the face of historical amnesia and a distorted nationalism in China.

About the Speaker: Rowena He received her PhD in education from the University of Toronto in 2008. She currently holds a postdoctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada at the Fairbank Center. Her research interests focus on political socialization, citizenship education, and democracy in China.

7:30 pm Second Lecture
China's Crony Communism
Bruce Dickson, Professor of Politics and International Relations, George Washington University

About the Talk: Professor Dickson challenges the notion that economic development is leading to political change in China or that China’s private entrepreneurs are helping to promote democratization. Instead, they have become partners with the ruling Chinese Communist Party to promote economic growth while maintaining the political status quo. Professor Dickson’s research illuminates the Communist Party’s strategy for incorporating China’s capitalists into the political system and how the shared interests, personal ties, and common views of the party and the private sector are creating a form of “crony communism.”

About the Speaker: Bruce Dickson is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. His research and teaching focus on political dynamics in China and Taiwan, especially the role of political parties in the process of political change. He is the author of Wealth into Power: The Communist Party’s Embrace of China’s Private Sector (2008), Red Capitalists in China: The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospects for Political Change (2003), and Democratization in China and Taiwan: The Adaptability of Leninist Parties (1997).

Thursday, April 2, 2009                                   
New England China Seminar
5:15 pm Lecture
Popular Accountability and Autocratic Resilience: Evidence from the
Single-Party Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe and China
Martin Dimitrov, Assistant Professor of Government, Dartmouth College

About the Talk: Communist regimes have proven to be the longest-lived type of nondemocratic regime. What explains this remarkable resilience? Traditionally, explanations have focused either on repression or on co-optation of elites. In his talk, Professor Dimitrov demonstrated that the key to understanding the longevity of communist regimes is to examine their systems of popular accountability. In particular, he focused on how the citizen complaint system operated in Eastern Europe and in China. Professor Dimitrov used documents from the secret Eastern European party archives and neibu materials from China to analyze how the citizen complaint system operated as a channel for popular accountability that prolonged the life span of both the Eastern European and the Chinese communist regimes.

About the Speaker: Martin Dimitrov is an Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and an associate at both the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. He is the author of Piracy and the State: The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights in China (Cambridge University Press, 2009). Currently, he is working on a book-length study of the collapse of communist regimes in Europe and their resilience in Asia.

7:30 pm Lecture
The Generalissimo: A Considerable Reappraisal
Jay Taylor, Retired Foreign Service Officer and Associate in Research at the Fairbank Center

About the Talk: Chiang Kai-shek’s uninterrupted tenure at the highest levels of world politics is excelled by few if any in modern history. At the very least, his was an extraordinary life. But he was long characterized in the West as a cardboard figure without any authentic achievements, principles, or ideals. Professor Taylor discussed his new biography, The Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek and China’s Struggle for Modern China,, which adds new aspects to the well-known negatives and also provides a considerable reappraisal of Chiang and his role in the historic events of  the time, including the Sino-Japanese and Chinese civil wars, the near-nuclear Quemoy crises, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and Nixon’s opening to China.

About the Speaker: Jay Taylor is a writer whose books include The Generalissimo’s Son (Harvard University Press, 2000) and Chiang Kai-shek and The Struggle for Modern China (Belnap Press, 2009). He was a Foreign Service Officer for 27 years (1957-1994), mostly in Chiniese affairs, but he also served as Deputy Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research and as chief of the US mission in Havana. In addition, he wrote, directed, and produced the PBS documentary Ubantu, African and Afrikaner (broadcast on PBS stations through the US in 2001. He is currently a Research Associate at the Fairbank Center.


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