{"product_id":"understanding-a-new-ally-china-s-history-china-s-present","title":"FALL SERIES: Understanding a new ally (?): China’s History, China’s Present - Blaine Chiasson. Starts October 13, 2026","description":"\u003ch2\u003eSeries Dates: October 13, October 20, October 27, November 3, November 10, November 17\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn this six-part series Wilfrid Laurier University Historian of Modern China Dr. Blaine Chiasson will trace the evolution of the last three hundred years of Chinese history to show how China’s past intersects with China’s present and our own. The Canadian government has signaled that Canada’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China, over the last few years a troubled one, is heading for a reset. But can we trust the PRC? Why was that state determined at any cost to become a superpower, and now that it has attained that status will it be a reliable ally? By examining the last tumultuous three hundred years of Chinese history and focusing on crucial events of the last century Dr. Chiasson will illuminate how China’s past affects China’s present. Each two-hour session will consist of two 50-minute lectures, designed as ‘deep dives’ into specific topics that motivate China to this day.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOctober 13: Understanding the Chinese Past Part I \u0026amp; II\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn these two lectures we will examine the broad scope of the last three hundred years of Chinese history. We will trace the evolution of the state now known as China from the multi-cultural Qing Manchu dynasty to insecure republic, civil war and communist state, with the Republic of China surviving on the island of Taiwan. Today’s PRC inherited the multi-ethnic Qing state, and the early republic set in place patterns of authoritarian political and military solutions. These patterns built the PRC we know today.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOctober 20: China’s Long Century of Humiliation + Creating Chinese Identity\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe topic for the first lecture is how the Qing and its successor states experienced a world changing reversal of fortune; from a regional economic and military superpower to a weakened state dominated by foreign powers and experiencing loss of sovereignty on its own territory. The second lecture will examine the creation of modern Chinese national identity, a process affected by the century of humiliation and a desperate search to salvage Chinese culture and build a new mass Chinese identity.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOctober 27: Forgotten Ally: China in WWII + Mao Zedong: Superstar\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the late 1920’s Japan became the Chinese Republic’s number one enemy. WWII for the Chinese begins well before 1941, and after 1941 the Republic joined the global fight against fascism. The fact that one of the coveted five seats on the UN security council was assigned to China is testimony to the essential role China played in WWII. Yet this contribution is often downplayed or ignored. In the 2\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003end\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e lecture we will examine the rise and career of Mao Zedong, whose communist party defeated the Chinese nationalists, themselves exhausted from decades of war against Japan.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNovember 3: The Cultural Revolution + Nixon in China\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMao Zedong was a revolutionary iconoclast and utopian, willing to gamble millions of his subjects lives on the quest of building the ideal socialist tomorrow. The first lecture will examine Mao’s campaign to destroy\/reform both the Chinese Communist Party and China’s society and culture. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) completely upended Chinese society, inflicted a mass trauma that is still yet to be addressed by the Chinese. The Cultural Revolution casts a shadow over Chinese politics and society to this day. The second lecture will focus on factional fighting within the Party that led the PRC to reach out to its greatest enemy, the US, and how the US’s desperate need to drive a wedge between the Communist powers and end the Vietnamese war, resulted in the US signing a deal overwhelming in the PRC’s favour, leading to China becoming the world’s factory.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNovember 10: Inventing Chinese Territory + Xi Jinping’s China Dream\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe PRC today is aggressively making territorial and maritime claims on a lot of real estate.  Why does the PRC feel it deserves great chunks of Asian land and sea? As the inheritor of the expansive Manchu Qing dynasty, with two thirds of the PRC’s territory home to other cultures and peoples, all with their own national claims, how does the PRC cope with the burden of being a multi-cultural state? In the second lecture we cast a light on the PRC’s present top dog; Xi Jinping, his background, his rise to power, his attempts to change the unwritten political deal that Mao’s successors made with the Chinese people, and Xi’s quest to rebuild an authoritarian China in his image.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNovember 17: Hidden Nation: Taiwan + China: Uneasy Superpower\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn these last two lectures we will examine the leading sources of insecurity facing today’s PRC. The first is the surviving Republican Chinese government on the island of Taiwan which has since the 1980s has transformed itself into one of the most dynamic democracies and open societies in Asia. Taiwan is now the open ‘other’ China, an example of what Chinese people, allowed to explore their own political and cultural options, are capable to building from the bottom up. What is Taiwan’s history of difference and why is the PRC government willing to risk all to get it back? Was it even theirs to begin with?  This lecture will segue way into a larger examination of the PRC as the world’s newest superpower, one riven with political and social contradictions and seemingly incapable of always shooting itself in the diplomatic foot. What do we make of the PRC as global bully? Can it change?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBiography:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBlaine Chiasson was born in Cheticamp, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. His BA is in Russian language \u0026amp; history from Dalhousie University. He attended the University of Toronto intending to continue his MA in Russian and Soviet history. After studying Mandarin language \u0026amp; Chinese history he became interested in the 500,000 + Russian émigré population in interwar China and switched to Modern Chinese history for his PhD. His research examined Russian and Chinese colonial administration in Manchuria. His monograph, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAdministering the Colonizer: Manchuria’s Russians under Chinese Rule 1919-1929 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e(2010) was published by UBC Press. His published articles examine Russian imperialism in China, Manchurian agricultural history, Beijing’s ethnic Chinese Russian Orthodox community and the Russian community in exile. His current project examines the two-year post 1901 Boxer occupation of northern China by the Eight Nation international allied forces and how this military interacted with the Chinese authorities, with ordinary Chinese and the changes that military occupation had on north China’s urban landscape and political history. He was a visiting scholar at Nanjing University and the National Library of China (Republic of China) in Taipei, Taiwan. He has also lived in Manchuria, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Beaver Valley Association for Lifelong Learning","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51244372590887,"sku":null,"price":65.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0710\/8614\/5831\/files\/FB2E4C49-1CCE-47F4-9764-36AB0AB0ABB4.png?v=1775522146","url":"https:\/\/bvall.com\/products\/understanding-a-new-ally-china-s-history-china-s-present","provider":"Beaver Valley Association for Lifelong Learning","version":"1.0","type":"link"}