Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Reviewing China

Want to review Chinese government and politics? Al Jazeera offers a 4-part video report.

China Rising: A four-part series that gives a rare insight into the country on the move, with history in tow.

In just 30 years, China has risen from long-standing poverty to being the second largest economy in the world – faster than any other country in history.

From angry farmers to weary migrant workers, powerful politicians and everyone in between, what China says and does, has become of undeniable importance to the entire world.

After centuries of western dominance, the world’s centre of economic and political weight is shifting eastward.

In just 30 years, China has risen from long-standing poverty to being the second largest economy in the world – faster than any other country in history.

From angry farmers to weary migrant workers, powerful politicians and everyone in between, what China says and does, has become of undeniable importance to the entire world. Episode 1 - The Dramatic Rise

Although no other country in history has risen so quickly from poverty to prosperity as China has, for many in the world's most populous nation, those advances have come at a price.

The economic reforms that made the People's Republic's rise possible have also led to a harshly divided China. Divisions whose impacts could easily spread from disenfranchised individuals to threaten the economic growth contemporary Chinese society has come to be based upon.

In the opening episode of this four-part series, we tell the stories behind these divisions, from the rising urban middle class to impoverished rural areas and the precarious existence of hundreds of millions of migrant workers on the fringes of some of the world's fastest growing cities.

You can go directly to the first video at this link.