China Flashcards
Continuities in China
- The nature of power and authority of the government; one child policy
- Cultural control; surveillance, propaganda, e.g. social credit system, censorship of facebook, use of wechat, limiting and descent of protests
- Power of tradition, confucianism
changes in China
- Roles and status in families, structure of families; modernisation, industrialization
- Changes caused by industrialization and urbanisation
- Progress in poverty rise in standards of living
- Changes caused by westernisation, globalisation, technology
- Sustainability
The significance of Confucianism
- Its influence in china has meant long-standing adherence to certain ethical and moral codes
- Constructs and promotes elitism, pushing importance and respect of men of nobility and scholars
- Taught strict gender roles and submission to male leadership
- Code of conduct that dictates how society should be structured to maintain social balance
- Social structure that has it written into it to not challenge it
- Offers stability, cooperation
- Limits conflict
- Allows for men to stay in a power position without conflict
- Collectivist culture
‘Jia’ or the centrality of family
- Large extended family with several generations and immediate families all living under the same roof
- Self sufficient, self help
- As soon as daughters come of age they are married out, join another Jia. during weddings, daughters officially severe ties with their old family and pledge to care for the ancestors of their new one
- Oldest competent male has all conduct in the family
- 4 or 5 gens under the same roof
Filial Piety
The importance of family and respect for parents and ancestors
power
the ability or capacity to influence or persuade others to a point of view or action to which they would not normally agree.
exercising power is important in initiating or preventing change.
authority
linked to power and the right to make decisions and to determine, adjudicate or settle issues and disputes in society.
authority is best understood as the legitimate use of power.
the use of authority is important in the process or decision-making and in initiating change and maintaining continuity
what progress looks like in a society
- moving towards a more advanced condition
- equality
BUT, progress is subjective
how do you judge progress
examine the impacts on individuals and groups at a micro, meso and macro level
- positive or negative?
- use concepts, e.g. does it lead to sustainability, decreased conflicts, empowerment
- short vs long term
groups:
- young people
- elderly
- men
- women
- CCP
- rich
- poor
- urban
- rural
benefits:
- empowerment
- choice and freedom
- cooperation
- financial benefit
empowerment
an ability to make decisions and take actions on your own behalf
urbanisation
- Feature of industrialization
- Moving away from rural
- Access to hospitals
- Lose access to ancestral veneration
- Lose tradition
- Parents leave their children behind in rural areas with the grandparents ‘the generation left behind’ some parents never come back
modernisation
- Decreased poverty
- Increased access to technology
- Increased empowerment
The Great Leap Forward
• Jan 1958 - chinas second 5 year plan
- Catch up with the rest of the world (industrialise)
- From agrarian society (agricultural) to modern, industrialised,
communist nation
• Using propaganda to promise people progress and a utopian
world “battle hard dor three years to-
• Resulted in a humanitarian and economic crisis
- 50 million died in the famine
• “Greater, faster, better and more economical.” CCP slogan
• “Communism is paradise… the people’s communes are the way to
get there” CCP slogan
• Food distribution, work routines, property, housing all under state
control
• Extreme intervention of micro world
• The Hukuo system - can only access recources within local area
unless given permission
• “Women hold up half the sky” mao
- All hands on deck, god is a woman, women can do work too !
- Childcare centers for the first time - allowed women to work,
previously older generation cared for child or they brang them
to work
industrialisation
process of building ‘industry’ (manufacturing. factory, products)
