Event
David Nelson Rowe, China, and How the History of IR’s New Right Was Lost
Robert Vitalis, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania
“Simply put, China was an integral part of what made the “New Right” new. –Joyce Mao
“Twenty years is about the length of time it takes a group of academics to storm the ramparts, take the citadel, and settle down to the fruits of victory.” -Andrew Abbott
As far as I have been able to tell, the last canonical accounts of the development of the China Studies field in US political science were written in the 1990s during the heyday of so-called engagement, and they reflect the views of those who are still in some cases very much active, e.g., Harry Harding, David Shambaugh, Liz Perry, Susan Shirk. One undeniable political intent of the collective exercise is the pragmatic one of erasure, as I will show. Will the next generation instead seek legitimation in part through selective identification with political science’s forgotten, century-plus-long study of China or will they ignore that past as well while going on to discover many things that were once commonly known?