Prerequisites: None

Exam Type: No Exam

This one unit course will examine the role that China has been playing in a world order in flux. We will consider, inter alia, China’s engagement of existing global norms, ways in which China may (or may not) now or in the foreseeable future be shaping such norms, and their impact on China.  In the course of so doing, we will also address the manner of US engagement with such norms.

Each of our six sessions will cover a specific topic. In past years topics have, inter alia, included trade, law and development, human rights, the legal profession, corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, climate change, foreign investment, and the roles of the US and China in Africa – with the precise configuration from among these to be determined closer to the start of the semester. We have each year done at least one, and often more, mock negotiations.   

In several prior years, we have held two or three of our six sessions jointly with a comparable class at a PRC university, via electronic means. Whether we are able to do that this coming fall will depend in important part on the state of the larger US-PRC relationship. If we are able to do it jointly, we likely will hold those two or three joint sessions later in the evening (e.g. 7-9 or 8-10) given the time difference between Cambridge and the PRC.