Page 109 - SYU Prospectus

History

past. The year 1978 is used as an important turning point to highlight how the nature of
Guangdong-centred political impact on Hong Kong shifted to a Hong Kong-centred economic
impact on the PRD as historical circumstances changed before and after that year. The degree
of linkage, especially economic, social and cultural also evolved in the post-1978 years, from
interdependency between Hong Kong and the PRD to a closer integration between the two
areas. This process of the integration, nevertheless, is extending to a much broader
geographical area, the Pan-Pearl River Delta region, between the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region and its neighbours.

HIST 450 China in the Contemporary World
1 Term; 3 Credits
This elective subject is the third in the series of “China and the World” to “bridge” the
Chinese History and World survey clusters. After a survey of China’s position and relations with
the World since the 21st century, the subject examines major issues in China’s often stormy
and argumentative interactions with other parts of the world in politics, economy, values, health,
environment, energy, resources, military, balance of power and mutual perceptions, etc, with
a special focus on its relations with the major powers since its dramatic economic reforms in
the 1970s.

HIST 460 Intellectual History of Modern China
1 Term; 3 Credits
This is a history of the intellectual odyssey of the modern Chinese intelligentsia from late
Qing through the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Increasingly alienated from the
old order after the abortive 1898 reforms, and confronted with the need for national survival,
members of the highly nationalist intelligentsia rejected Chinese, specifically Confucian, culture
in total favour of “scientism” and “democracy” during the New Culture and May Fourth period.
After 1919, the ideological split within the ranks of the intellectuals turned many disillusioned
with the capitalist West to socialist ideas, including Marxian communism, and others to a new
interpretation of Confucianism. This course also examines the ascendancy of Communism in
the early 1920s within the socialist discourse, and the Sinicization of Communism, culminating
in the formation of Mao Zedong ( 毛澤東 ) Thought in the 1940s.

HIST 462 The Making of Modern Japan
1 Term; 3 Credits
This course aims to study the political, social, economic and military developments of
modern Japan with emphasis on the following topics: traditional elements facilitating Japan’s
modernization; key modernization actions taken in the late Tokugawa and Meiji periods;
political changes and development beginning at the Taisho period; the rise of militarism
between the two world wars and Japanese invasion of Asia; the post-war constitutional reform,
economic recovery and cultural changes; and the role of Japan in current international scene
and main internal and external factors affecting its path. Capping the discussion would be an

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