Debating Chinese Politics (激辩中国政治)
Free 10-Week Online Seminar
Conducted in Chinese
Thursdays, September 26 – December 5, 2024
10:00 – 11:30 AM ET
Seminar taught in Chinese
Hosted on Zoom – Register for Link
Seminar will be conducted in Chinese.
This seminar offers a series of timely debates conducted in Chinese and aimed at a global Chinese audience, focusing on important and controversial issues in Chinese politics and international relations that cannot be freely discussed inside China. In each 90-minute session, guest debaters who are authorities in the subject area will be randomly assigned to present pro and con positions on the following propositions; the audience will vote on each proposition before the debate and at the end of the debate, and will also have a chance to pose questions. We hope to help Chinese in China and around the world think through their own positions on a variety of issues facing China at home and abroad.
Debate topics include:
1. Democracy is suitable for China
2. The China Model works well; it should be emulated by other countries
3. The majority of Chinese people support the Chinese Communist Party
4. China’s long-term strategic goal is to overthrow the rule-based international order
5. The West’s engagement policy toward China was a failure
6. The way modern technology is developing helps drive the trend toward authoritarianism
7. It is not enough for the U.S. to manage competition with China, it needs to promote regime change
8. Activists can effectively promote China’s democratization through non-violent means
9. Chinese people should support “the great unification”
10. Trump presidency will be in favor of China’s democratization
中国的民主转型受到阻碍，但很多人仍在为推进中国的宪政民主而努力。中国在国际舞台上扮演着越来越重要的角色，“中国向何处去”越来越成为举世关切的问题。然而，在与中国相关的政治、经济、公民社会、民族和国际关系等一些重大问题上，无论是在理论上还是在实践中，政策制定者、知识分子和普通民众之间都存在着巨大的分歧。美国和其他民主国家已经重新考虑了对中国的接触政策，对华政策在发生深刻转变，但对中国政治和社会的天真看法和误解仍然存在。
在此背景下，新学院大学（the New School）的The New University In Exile Consortium将开设网课《激辩中国》，由哥伦比亚大学教授黎安友和纽约城市大学亨特学院客座教授、《中国民主季刊》副主编滕彪主持。本网络课程免费向所有人开放注册。完成80%课程者，将获得新学院大学颁发的结课证书。
本讲座将就中国政治中重要而有争议的问题，邀请相关领域的学者专家展开一系列辩论。
1 、民主制度适合中国 VS 民主制度不适合中国
2、中国模式是成功的模式 VS 中国模式是失败的模式
3、多数中国民众仍支持中国政府 VS多数中国民众不支持中国政府
4、中国对现有国际秩序构成威胁 VS 中国对现有国际秩序不构成威胁
5、西方对华的接触政策已经失败 VS 西方对华的接触政策没有失败
6、高科技有利于专制政权 VS 高科技有利于公民社会
7、美国应推动中国政权更迭 VS 美国应推动中国政权更迭
8、在中国民主化进程中应该采取非暴力抵抗 VS 中国民主化进程中不应排除暴力反抗
9、中国应该 “大一统” VS 西藏、新疆应有自决权
10、川普成为美国总统有利于中国民主化 VS 川普成为美国总统不利于中国民主化
Seminar Co-Leaders
Teng Biao
Independent Scholar, Human Rights Lawyer
Dr. Teng Biao is an academic lawyer and human rights activist from China. He was formerly a lecturer at China University of Political Science and Law and has been a visiting fellow at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, New York University, Hunter College, and Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights. His research focuses on constitutionalism, legal theory, democratic theory, criminal justice, human rights, social movements, and transitional justice in China. He is formerly the Pozen Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago and serves as the deputy editor of China Democracy Quarterly.
Andrew Nathan
Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University
Dr. Andrew J. Nathan is the Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. His teaching and research interests include Chinese politics and foreign policy, the comparative study of political participation and political culture, and human rights. He is engaged in long-term research and writing on Chinese foreign policy and on sources of political legitimacy in Asia, the latter research based on data from the Asian Barometer Survey, a multi-national collaborative survey research project active in eighteen countries in Asia. Nathan is chair of the steering committee of the Center for the Study of Human Rights and chair of the Morningside Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Columbia.
Syllabus and Readings
More Information
Participants who attend at least 8 out of 10 complete seminar sessions will receive a certificate of satisfactory completion signed by the Dean of The New School for Social Research. To obtain the certificate, participants must register and log in with the same email address each week.
Registration will remain open for the duration of the seminar. Registrants will receive a reminder email with the Zoom link each week. The seminar sessions will be recorded and available to registrants on Vimeo the following week.