Annotation
The course will be lectured by Prof. Bates Gill from the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University, Sydney. Prof. Gill has a 30-year career as a scholar, policy advisor and author, focusing on Asia-Pacific politics, foreign policy and security, with a particular focus on China and U.S.-China relations. He has held leadership, research and academic positions with some of the world's leading institutions and universities, including the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Sydney, and the Australian National University. He has published eight books and over 150 other publications, including most recently China Matters: Getting it Right for Australia (Black Inc/LaTrobe University Press, 2017)(with Linda Jakobson). His current research projects include a focus on the modernisation of Chinese strategic forces (nuclear, cyber, space) and how U.S. allies are balancing relations between a rising China and an uncertain America.
China's re-emergence as a significant economic and political actor is a geopolitical development of the first order. It has been a century since the international system has had to accommodate a wholly new major power, particularly a power that has the potential to rival even the weight of the United States (US). Given the importance of these developments, this course seeks to equip students to assess the trajectory of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with a particular focus on its current rise to prominence as a major regional power and increasingly important global security actor, its underlying security and defence policies, and the ongoing military modernisation drive of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Students will engage and evaluate the primary and secondary literature on these topics, gain a richer understanding of the motivations behind the PRC’s strategic behaviour and security policy, learn the specifics of the PLA’s reform and reorganisation programme, and consider the implications of these developments for global and regional security, especially with regard to PRC-US relations.
For details of the course, please see the attached file with its full syllabus.