Course Description
An eye-witness journey through the history of modern China, from Chairman Mao’s apocalyptic Cultural Revolution to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre to President Xi Jinping’s economic juggernaut. This course will examine China’s politics, economics, global strategy, culture, demographics, and environment. And, of course, why all this matters to Canada.
Course Director
Jan Wong
Jan Wong was the first Canadian to study in China. She lived in Beijing for a dozen years from the 1970s to the 1990s and has travelled there many times since. She first landed there during the Cultural Revolution and had a Red Guard roommate at Peking University. Later, as the first and only woman to be named the Globe and Mail’s China bureau chief, she won a National Newspaper Award. From 2011-2020, she was a professor of journalism at St. Thomas University. She is the author of six bestsellers, including four on China.
Jan Wong
Term and Time
Fall 2026- starting September 11
10:00 a.m. on Fridays
Room A100 in York Hall
Course Outline
Two weeks before the course starts, you can download a printable PDF giving the 10-week detailed course outline.
NOTE: The course outline opens in a new browser tab where you cannot see the LLIR page header and menu. You can download the outline for future reading and printing. When you are finished, return to our website as follows:
— On a large screen, click the X on the right side of the browser tab to close it.
— On a smartphone, click the back button displayed as a back arrowhead ( < ) .
Lecture Notes
Links to resources such as additional reading or play lists are provided here as the Course Director makes them available during term. Like the course outline, lecture notes open in a new browser tab so that you can download and print them.
Return to the list of Courses for 2026-2027 to check out another course.
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