Graduate Courses at Shanghai University - March 25 - June 1, Spring 2019

China and the Middle East/Africa

Instructor: Tugrul Keskin             

China will never seek hegemony or expansion – no matter what stage of development it reaches.

China’s socialist democracy best for Chinese people’s interests, no need to copy the political system of other countries.

19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China - Xi Jinping

Course Description and Objective:

This course will review and analyze the increased presence of PRC in the Contemporary Middle East. After the Deng Xiaoping came to power, he liberalized the Chinese state and economy. As a result of his economic policies, the PRC opened its doors to foreign investment and international companies. This trend created a “great transformation in Chinese society.”  Over the next thirty years, the Chinese middle class grew to a size of over three hundred fifty million people. David Harvey calls this process “neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics.” However, this economic transformation and the emergence of a large middle class in China created additional energy needs for the state and society. This led to a shift in Chinese foreign policy towards the Middle East. Therefore, over the last few years China, as an emerging global power, has heavily invested in the economies of Middle Eastern countries. However, there are other competitors in the Middle Eastern economic market; such as the United States and Europe. Although the Middle East is considered an American backyard, China is currently trying to enter the Middle Eastern market for its own energy and security needs. However, unlike in Africa, China has moved slowly in order not to disturb American National Interests. China is consequently sneaking into the Middle Eastern oil market without too much attention to this trend. In this class, we will review how the growing needs for oil and gas of the Chinese economy has shaped Chinese foreign policy in the Middle East after 1978. 

Think Tanks, International and Non-Governmental Organizations   

Instructor: Tugrul Keskin             

                                                                                                                  

Of the many influences on the US foreign policy formulation, the role of think tanks is among the most important and appreciated.

Richard N. Haass

The current president of CFR and a former Director of Policy and Planning - U.S. Department of State     

Course Description and Objective:  In this course, we will examine the emergence and development of think tanks and international and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from a comparative perspective. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the concept of the modern state emerged out of the growth of capitalism and industrialization and led to the creation of a complex bureaucracy and an interconnected social, political and economic environment within the global political arena.  However, WWI and II gave birth to the UN (originally the League of Nations) as a venue for negotiation between nation-states in the international arena in order to prevent political conflicts.

We will also study the emergence, development and role of non-governmental organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. All of these organizations are fairly new to the global social and political arena.