Guide in PDF format
Logo

Modern and Contemporary East Asian History

Code: 101542
Credits: 6
2026/2027
Degree programme Type Course
East Asian Studies OB 3
Spanish and Chinese Studies: Language, Literature and Culture OP 4

Contact lecturer

Name :
Maria Gemma Rubi Casals
Email :
mariagemma.rubi@uab.cat

Teaching staff

Miguel Angel Rio Morillas

Group languages

You can consult this information at the end of the document.

Prerequisites

Specifically, this subject requires prior knowledge obtained through the following subjects: History of Asia, Premodern History of East Asia.

Objectives

The purpose of this subject is for students to learn about and analyse the history of East Asia (China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan) from the mid-Nineteenth century to the present. The subject covers fundamental historical events, as well as historical and cultural relations and interaction between the countries in question.

Learning outcomes

  1. Knowing, understanding, describing, analysing, and assessing the history, thought and literature of East Asia.
  2. Knowing and comprehending the pre-modern, modern and late modern history of East Asia.
  3. Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  4. Developing self-learning strategies.
  5. Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  6. Producing innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activity.
  7. Having interpersonal skills.
  8. Respecting the gender equality.
  9. Working in teams in an international, multilingual and multicultural context.
  10. Working in interdisciplinary and intercultural groups.
  11. Ensuring the quality of one's own work.
  12. Following the characteristic code of ethics of the professional practice.
  13. Develop critical thought and reasoning and know how to communicate them effectively in both your own and in a third language.
  14. Develop strategies for autonomous learning.
  15. Explain the explicit or implicit code of practice of one's own area of knowledge.
  16. Possess interpersonal skills.
  17. Identify the need to mobilise cultural knowledge to be able to translate.
  18. Recognise the need to mobilise cultural knowledge to be able to interpret.
  19. Use different tools for specific purposes in the field of history.
  20. Know and understand the pre-modern, modern and contemporary history of East Asia.
  21. Identify and describe the processes and events of pre-modern, modern and contemporary history.
  22. Describe, analyse and valorise the history, thought and literature of East Asia.
  23. Evaluate the result obtained in the process of searching for documentation and information and to update knowledge of the history, literature, language, thought and art.
  24. Make document searches in the languages of East Asian countries.
  25. Ensure quality standards for your own work.

Contents

I: Imperialism in Asia

Topic 1. From the First Sino-Japanese War to the Russo-Japanese War (1894-1905)


II: Nationalism in East Asia

Topic 2. China: (1900-1937)

• Two Chinas: the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937.

Topic 3: Japan (1900-1937)

• Japan between 1920 and 1941: the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the development of Japanese fascism and the Japanese imperial plan.

Topic 4: Korea (1910-1945)

• Japanese colonization


III: The Second World War in Asia (1937-1945)

Topic 5. The Second World War in China

Topic 6. The Second World War in Japan, Korea and Taiwan


IV: Cold War (1947-1991)

Topic 7. The Second Chinese Civil War (1946-1949)

Topic 8. The Korean War (1950-1953)

Topic 9. China under Mao (1949-1976):

• The establishment of the People's Republic of China (1949-1952)

• The first Five Year Plan (1953-1957)

• The Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-1957)

• The Great Leap Forward (1958-1965)

• The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

Topic 10. Korea (1952-1989):

• South Korea: military dictatorships (1953-1988)

• North Korea: Kim Il-sung (1948-1994)

Topic 11. Japan (1945-1990)

• US occupation (1945-1952)

• The 1955 system and socio-economic development (1955-1990)

Topic 12. Taiwan (1955-1988):

• Taiwan: the dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek (1949-1975) and Chiang Ching-kuo (1975-1988).


V: From the end of the Cold War in Asia to the present (1991-today)

Topic 13. China after Mao:

• The limits of the reformism of Deng Xiaoping (1979-1997) and Tiananmen incident (1989)

• Jiang Zemin,Hu Jintao and the rise of the socialist market economy (1993-2013)

Learning activities and methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
Lectures 50 2 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Study, papers reading 63 2.52 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23
Exercise, essays, tutorials 25 1 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 14

- Lectures.

- Debates and discussions.

- Reading and understanding historical texts.

- Learning to compile historical information.

- Conducting reviews and drafting analytical papers.

- Individual study.


In this course, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is not permitted at any stage of the assessment activities. Any work that includes AI-generated content will be considered a breach of academic integrity and will be graded a 0, regardless of any disciplinary proceedings that may be initiated.


Annotation: within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Assessment

Continuous assessment activities

Title Weight Hours ECTS Learning outcomes
Exams 30% 4 0.16 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23
Group assignment 40% 2 0.08 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
Individual assignment 30% 6 0.24 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 19, 25

Continuous assessment

Students must provide evidence of their progress by completing various tasks and tests. These activities are detailed in the table at the end of this section of the Study Guide.

Review

When publishing final marks prior to recording them on students' transcripts, the lecturer will provide written notification of a date and time for reviewing assessment activities. Students must arrange reviews in agreement with the lecturer.

Missed/failed assessment activities

Students may retake assessment activities they have failed or compensate for any they have missed, provided that those they have actually performed account for a minimum of 66.6% (two thirds) of the subject's final mark and that they have a weighted average mark of at least 3.5.

The lecturer will inform students of the procedure involved, in writing, when publishing final marks prior to recording them on transcripts. The lecturer may set one assignment per failed or missed assessment activity or a single assignment to cover a number of such activities. Under no circumstances may an assessment activity worth 100% of the final mark be retaken or compensated for. In case of retaking, maximum grade will be 5 (Pass).

Classification as \"not assessable\"

In the event of the assessment activities a student has performed accounting for just 25% or less of the subject's final mark, their work will be classified as \"not assessable\" on their transcript.

Misconduct in assessment activities

Students who engage in misconduct (plagiarism, copying, personation, etc.) in an assessment activity will receive a mark of “0” for the activity in question. In the case of misconduct in more than one assessment activity, the student involved will be given a final mark of “0” for the subject. Assessment activities in whichirregularities have occurred (e.g. plagiarism, copying, impersonation) are excluded from recovery.

Activities:

Comprehensive project 30%

Written tests 30%

Historical practical work 40%


Single assessment:

This subject doesn't contemplate single assessment.

Bibliography

GENERAL

- HOLCOMBE, C.: Una historia de Asia Oriental. De los orígenes de la civilización al siglo XXI, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Ciudad de México, 2016.

CHINA

- DIKÖTTER, F.: La tragedia de la liberación. Una historia de la revolución china (1945-1957), Acantilado, Barcelona, 2019.

- ESTEBAN RODRÍGUEZ, M.: China después de Tian’anmen. Nacionalismo y cambio político, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2007.

- FISAC, T. y TSANG, S. (eds): China en trasición. Sociedad, cultura, política y economía, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2000.

- GAO, M.: Construyendo China. Visiones enfrentadas sobre la República Popular China, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2018.

- GELBER, H.: El dragón y los demonios extranjeros. China y el mundo a lo largo de la historia, RBA, Barcelona, 2008.

- GERNET, J.: El mundo chino, Crítica, Barcelona, 2005.

- LOVELL, J.: Maoísmo. Una historia global, Debate, Barcelona, 2021.

- MACFARQUHAR, R. y SCHOENHALS, M.: La revolución cultural china, Crítica, Barcelona, 2009.

- OLLÉ, M.: Made in China. El despertar social, político y cultural de la China contemporánea, Destino, Barcelona, 2005.

- SÁIZ LÓPEZ, A.: Utopía y género. Las mujeres chinas en el siglo XX, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2001.

- SPENCE, J. D.: En busca de la China moderna, Tusquets Editores, Barcelona, 2011.

- RÍOS, X.: China pide paso. De Hu Jintao a Xi Jinping, Icaria, Barcelona, 2012.

JAPAN

- BEASLEY, W. G.: La restauración Meiji, Editorial Satori, Gijón, 2007.

- CHARTRAND, R.: Japanese War Art and Uniforms, 1853-1930, Schiffer, 2011.

- CRESPÍN PERALES, M.: Feminismo e identidades de género en Japón, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2021.

- DOWER, J.D.: Embracing Defeat. Japan in the Wake of World War II, WW. Norton & Company- The New Press, New York, 2000.

- GORDON, A.: A Modern History of Japan. From Tokugawa Time to the Present, Oxford University Press, 2009.

- GOTO-JONES, C.: Modern Japan. A very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2009.

- HENSHALL, K.: A History of Japan. From Stone Age to Superpower, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

- KINGSTON, J.: Contemporary Japan. History, Politics and the Social change since the 1980s, Blackwell Publish, 2011.

- MIMURA, J.: Planning for Empire. Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State, Cornell University Press,Ithaca and London, 2011.

- RODAO, F.: La soledad del país vulnerable. Japón desde 1945, Crítica, Barcelona, 2019.

- VARGAS, F.: Izquierda y revolución. Una história política del Japón de posguerra (1945-1972), Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2020.

COREA

- CUMINGS, B.: Korea´s place in the sun. A modern history, Norton, New York y London, 1997.

- HALBERTAM, D.: La Guerra Olvidada. Una historia de la Guerra de Corea, Crítica, Barcelona, 2008.

- YANG, E.: Corea. Historia de un proceso de reunificación, La Catarata, Madrid, 2007.

TAIWAN

- LU, Y.: Taiwan, Historia, política e identidad, Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona, 2010.

- RÍOS, X.: Taiwán, el problema de China, La Catarata, Madrid, 2005.

- ROY, D.: Taiwan. A Political History, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003.


Accessible digital documents: https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/guibib/224929/bibrecdigitals.pdf.

Software

No software will be used.

Course groups and languages

The information provided is provisional until November 30. After this date, you will be able to consult the language of each group through this link. To access the information, you will need to enter the course CODE

Type of teaching Group Language Semester Shift
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan/Spanish second semester morning-mixed