Capitalist China: Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, Past, Present, and Future

Applications for this study tour are closed.

Taiwan and Hong Kong developed dynamic capitalist economies long before the People’s Republic of China started its market transition in 1979. This course will examine the uncertain relationships between modernization, economic development, and political democracy in each polity, as they evolved in the wake of departing colonial powers Britain (in the case of Hong Kong), and Japan (in the case of Taiwan), as well as, in the more recent assertions of power by the PRC.

Students will explore Taiwan’s claims to China’s historical legacy and Hong Kong’s accommodation to the “one country, two systems” approach that Beijing adopted as a condition of retrocession, but now seems to be rejecting. Finally, “Capitalist China” will explore the impacts of current political and economic changes through the experience of the important U.S. ally, South Korea, whose relationship with China, Taiwan, and Japan shines an interesting light on the changing concepts of “capitalist China.”

This study tour fulfills the following general education requirements: CL and IP.