The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will host Dr. Julia Strauss and her lecture "Building the post-1949 State in China and Taiwan" on February 16.
By the late 1950s, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Republic of China (ROC) stood as exemplars of success for both “revolutionary” and “conservative” variants of the modern state. However, in 1949 these two regimes had an overlooked yet substantial amount in common in structure and state building agendas. Juxtaposition of the PRC in Sunan (Southern Jiangsu) with the ROC in Taiwan, illustrates that each relied on a fluctuating mix of bureaucratic and campaign modalities to implement similar policies each deemed essential to state building – the dispatch of enemies of the state, and the implementation of land reform. However, the ways in which campaigns against subversives and for land reform were publicly performed pointed to key differences in each regime’s core values, how it represented itself, and how it attempted to generate legitimacy.It starts at 3:00 pm and is free and open to the public, though registration is required.