Reflective Learning Journal

IIRP Tips on Writing Reflection Papers

A reflection paper is not a summary of the course readings or a stream of conscious mind dump on paper.

Main themes Readings

Integrate

Effects on: Thinking Practice

Classroom Experience

1. As the diagram suggests, a reflection paper is your identification of the main themes of the readings integrated with your classroom experience and how both affect your thinking and practice.

2. A reflection paper is your chance to add your thoughts and analysis to what you have read and experienced.

3. A reflection paper is meant to illustrate your understanding of the material and how it affects your ideas and possible practice in future.

4. Begin by jotting down some of the reading material and class experiences that stand out in your mind. Decide why they stand out to you.

5. It may be helpful to use the restorative questions to generate some of your thoughts and feelings about the course experience.

6. Using the first person singular (“I”), relate the readings and classes to your previous knowledge and experience.

7. Consider if and how what you have read and learned changes your thinking and might affect your practice in both personal and professional situations.

8. Review the readings and class notes to be sure you’ve included all the relevant information you can and made all the connections you can.

9. Give your reflection paper structure with an opening paragraph, main body, and conclusion.

10. It may be helpful to write the body of the paper first by using Steps 4-7, and then decide what your opening paragraph should say. The opening paragraph may be brief, only a sentence or two, but it should offer some overall statement of your perspective based on what you’ve learned (e.g., Before I read the articles for YC/ED 501, I had never considered that I was an authoritative supervisor, that is, someone who gives my staff firm direction but little support.). Then you could go on to describe which readings or class experiences affected your thinking and why. You could disagree with some of the readings or ideas. The conclusion of

IIRP/4/6/10MM/BR/SO

your reflection may also be brief (e.g., I realize that I must learn how to be more supportive to get the best from my staff.). Or it could be uncertain (e.g., I don’t agree with everything I learned but I am going to consider using some of the practices in future to see if they change my office environment.).

11. Include in-text references and a reference page for any materials you cite using APA citation formatting.

Provides a good overview of the main themes of the module and demonstrates how your understanding has evolved. Demonstrates a good understanding of the material covered and shows that you have engaged critically with the topics. Would benefit from some further reflection on how your thinking has changed as a result of the module. There is not sufficient engagement or reflection on the course literature however. You need to demonstrate which readings shaped your thinking and how you critically engaged with them. There is too much focus on the overview and not enough on your own critical reflection of what you have learned and how you learned it.

Joining this module has been an eye-opener, at least to me personally. Prior to this, I have no knowledge in the field of politics. This module served well in building a solid foundation for me in understanding the political situation in China. The future direction of CCP has sparked my interest in the politics in China, seeing that it has done so well in leading China to becoming the economy powerhouse China is today. This essay reflects on my previous research, providing my personal view on the future of China’s political position.

To sum it all up, China’s success today is mainly contributed to the economy reform pushed forward by Deng Xiaoping. Under the reform, China had undergone unprecedented growth compared to the world in modern history. At sight, it might be due to the large population and natural resource China has. However, there are so many factors contributed to this that essentially made this possible. first, China had been able to benefit from implementing what works best in her neighbouring countries such as Taiwan, South Korea. In doing so, China could accelerate economy growth by choosing the shortest route of development. Also, China had just passed the great famine right before reform, which drives CCP to either adapt or die out. In addition to that, attempt to limit on the population growth by pushing forward both ‘later, longer, fewer“ and the highly controversial one child policy has also proven to have accelerated China’s economy take off by 10 years shown in Yu’s research (2010). Furthermore, gearing towards manufacturing based in China has also proven as better growth drive compared to India that emphasized on service industry. These are some of the main factors that accounted for the 3 decades rapid growth in China.

Yet, in the midst of the 3 decades of development, corruption has become very rampant. In the early stage, Hu Yaobang’s attempt to flush out corrupted officials by investigating the finance of the high ranking’s children in his anti-corruption campaign, aiming to eradicate corruption, has angered many of the officials and even Deng Xiaoping. Eventually, he was pushed towards his downfall. Shortly after his death, comes the brutal massacre in Tiananmen that many argued to be the fall of CCP. However, this is not the case seen in today’s China where CCP thrived in maintaining control over China. This showed Deng does not tolerate in risking CCP’s control over China even if it means accepting corruption to be practiced in the party. As a result, much questionable fortune had amassed among the government officials and their close relatives and friends. Again, after many years, Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has deemed successful in eradicating corruption. However, this is only measured by the amount of people arrested, and riches confiscated. The drive behind Xi’s campaign is very debatable, seeing that CCP’s survival is put above all else compared to Hu’s campaign, which aimed to push forward a clean, transparent, democratic government. After all, Xi’s family fortune is amounted up to billions in value and many princelings have been given high-ranking position in state-owned enterprises allowing them to be in control of billions in asset (Kwong, 2013). In my opinion, Xi’s attempt in balancing between soothing public anger and ensure the survival of the Party might backfire when internal conflict rises among the party cadres. Question lies on whom to be put on the sacrificial tomb when the time comes. Would the survival of the party be in conflict with the campaign, risking the exposure of the vulnerable side of the party, ultimately putting China’s control on the line?

Today, China has never been more peaceful, secure, stable, richer and many more that accounts the success tied with contribution of CCP. Some would even go to the extent and state that authoritarian regime has made this possible in China. Yet, if this is so, China would have succeeded years ago. Authoritarianism has nothing to do with China’s success. Rather, CCP’s neutral stance in allocating resources among social and political groups that has boost China’s rapid economy (Yang, 2011). So, what role does authoritarian play in China’s development? In my view, authoritarian approach has been used as a tool to push forward controversial policies such as the one child policy to accelerate growth or better town planning such as rellocation of residents to make way for urban development. In the past, Deng has transformed the legitimacy of CCP to link with economy performance. Thus, explains many of the policies to ensure highest possible economic output. However, as economic growth slows down, the public has started questioning the CCP’s competence to continue to rule China. In recent years, Xi Jinping has emphasized on the unity of the party, maintaining harmony in the society. Yet, the media is being repressed even further. More journalist being imprisoned. Internet crackdown has been rampant as well. The effectiveness of these movements to enable CCP maintaining in control are very debatable, especially among the younger generations that have been exposed to the outside world.

Would democracy be better in place in current China? I believe so. Looking at Wukan’s village election phenomenon has proved it possible. Eventhough it was a rough start in Wukan, having elected some officials that are also corrupted, given that corruption was the first driving force for Wukan’s strong presistence in demanding for a democratic system for their village. It was quickly weeded out, as seen in the recent election in Wukan. This would have assisted Xi in his anti-corruption movement. What I can see as the biggest problem in current China is actually the legitimacy of CCP. What is the basis of CCP’s legitimacy? Linking economy performance with legitimacy is too rigid as there are so many other aspects needed to be taken into consideration. The government is in place to serve the people and not to rule them. Enacting democratic reforms does not necessarily mean to giving up on control. One good example would be Singapore’s PAP, which was often cited as a authoritarian democratic country. Since independence, PAP had been in rule till today. Yet, Singapore’s government is considered top in many aspects among the world especially in zero tolerance in corruption. I believe that CCP would be able to do so as well. On one hand, corruption could be completely eradicated, which is the main motive of any anti-corruption campaign; one the other hand, CCP could further legitimate its power, at the same time provide accountability of the party cadres. In other words, CCP would be giving up absolute power to be able to retain its control. In addition to that, transparency of CCP would provide reassurance that CCP is and has always been in line with the public’s interest. Yet, some would argue that modern democracy has it demerits as well, seeing that the recent election in the United States proved that one does not need experience in the political field to be in govern, which essentially would never happen in China where positions are promoted internally through careful evaluation. What I am suggesting essentially is that that CCP should enact some degree of democratic reforms in order for China to continue develop further and that there should be a fine line between political party and the government body.

I realize that the CCP should have eradicated corruption at its root, the start of rapid development during Deng’s era even at the expense of economic growth. Failing to do so showed a chained effect of rampant corruption around China that has threatened even more of CCP’s ruling as public losing faith in it.

Reference:

Kwong, (2013). Why China’s Corruption Won’t Stop. [online] The Nation. Available at: https://www.thenation.com/article/why-chinas-corruption-wont-stop/ [Accessed 10 Dec. 2016].

Yu, Z. (2010). Demographic Dynamics and Economic Take-Off. Chinese Economy, 44(1), pp.72-90.

Yang, Y. (2011). Authoritarianism not key to China’s economic success | East Asia Forum. [online] East Asia Forum. Available at: http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/11/20/authoritarianism-not-key-to-china-s-economic-success/ [Accessed 15 Dec. 2016].

Provides a very good overview of the main themes of the module and demonstrates how your understanding has evolved throughout. Engages very well with the material covered and demonstrates a strong understanding of the themes covered and the different approaches taken.  Demonstrates how the readings and the lecture content helped you to engage in your own critical analysis. A good example of reflecting on your own process of learning. There could be some further reflection on the readings and how they impacted on your learning over the module. At times sentence structure and writing are unclear. Would benefit from some further editing. Mark 68

Reflection learning journal

Before I read the relative articles for ET 4013 CN, I did not realize my lack of academic knowledge about Chinese politic system such as vertical (tiao) and horizontal (kuai) mechanism which explains some common issues emerging between central government and local government. Why is corruption too difficult to eradicate in an one-party system? Why does civil unrest from grassroots remain as a stubborn problem in contemporary China? How does central-provincial relations cause the income inequality in different regions of China? To answer these questions, some intra-party politic system should be mentioned and discussed. Dr David O’Brien has established a big picture of contemporary Chinese politic system for us with expounding some key concepts such as Chinese anti-corruption diploma and some inner rules of CCP. Dr Wang Zhengxu tends to find out the root cause of some specific local political phenomenons by focusing on central-local relations and Chinese civil society in grassroots. Besides, some key readings such as “Local government and politics in China: challenges from blew” (Zhong, 2003) and “Ballox box China: grassroots democracy in the final major one-party state” (Brown, 2011) have provided me a broad while specific vision to examine the rules of CCP from top-bottom system.

Based on numerous historical researches on Chinese civil society and politic system, the common statement tends to deny the existence of democracy in Chinese society (Brown, 2011). However, with more and more researches studying on Chinese village election mechanism, the consideration of rethinking civil society or democracy in Chinese context is brought up again. Influenced by “no democracy in china” statement, I always keep a suspicious attitude when discussing Chinese civil society or democracy issues. Besides, 1989 Tiananmen square event has left me a deep impression on China’s dark politics especially the arbitrary crackdown on protests by central government. On the contrary, responding measures adopted to deal with protests by local government rekindle my confidence to embrace some slimsy democracy in grassroots. For instance, several anti-PX (anti-pparaxylene) protests such as Xiamen protest is generally regarded as one important step heading in civil participation for Chinese local government (Cody, 2007; Tang, 2008). These information has built up my cognition on Chinese democracy: central government suppress civil liberty while local government does better on this issue because of their direct contact with grassroots. However, a dramatic reversal happens after I attend this module and read some relevant readings. According to Zhong (2003), central government always delegates local government to maintain stability and defuse popular discontent in appropriate way rather than sharpening contradiction. While local government often choose to strengthen their discretion to make profits for themselves. But why does this kind of possibility exist? Central-local relations may provide the answer. When Dr David O’Brien firstly mentioned about the disparity between the party and the regions, I feel confused because I never before linked the Chinese unbalanced development between regions to top-down system. Zhou’s (2009) article then has solved my doubt in this part. He mentioned about the joint mechanism by lower authorities to poll together several local authorities in order to avoid inspection work from central government. That is to say, even if local officials corrupt or misconduct, central government can hardly decide to punish them since lower authorities will unite to deceive central investigators. Because of this, appeal system becomes the most important mechanism for Chinese citizens especially for grassroots to make their political participation (Cai, 2004). However, it is still hard for ordinary people to petition because of the drain on manpower and material resources. All these difficulties increase the probability of civil unrest such as protest, which surprises me because I thought local protests reflect increasing democratic factors rather than misconducts of local government.

Different from my impression on Tiananmen square event, central government restricted violent repression or suppression on smooth protest and non-anti-regime activities hold by citizens (Cai,2008). However, local government develops their right of discretion may be because of their absolute authority in local and the blocked top-down command system. As Dr Wang Zhengxu introduces, when citizens choose to revolt their unfair treatment beyond endurance, local government tends to ignore their valid request. It finally turns out as collective protests or unrest despite harmonious society advocated by central government. Some protests lead to an happy ending such as Xiamen anti-PX protests. Jointly signed boycott by more than 100 members of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) successfully exposed the potential harm of this chemical plant project in the public view, which led a large-scale protests by Xiamen citizens and finally forced local government to relocate the project (Cody, 2007). Direct intervention of CPPCC has broken the traditional obstacle hindered between central government and local citizens. But can this pattern be replicated as an official system? Compared to Xiamen peaceful protest, other protests may lead to bloody suppression, such as Maoming protest and Wukan protest. Without direct intervention by superior departments, local government seems to be able to suppress protests under the pressure of vox populi. As Dr David O’Brien mentioned, the disparity of different regions in China is not only the economic one. Some places such as Beijing, local government is more afraid of causing discontented for local citizens, since it is easy for central government to master the situation and manage the local government. While in other cases, central government may feel weak to control the local government because of the long distance and those countless barriers in-between. Connecting with class discussion, I found that Hu kou (registered permanent residence) reflects not only the inequality in education, income and social welfare, but also to some extent the the degree of democratic because when something bad happened to you, you can hardly fight against the local government if the “the emperor is too far to handle the situation”. It may also reflect a fact that this kind of local-central relations can hardly result in democratic development because central government is too authoritative to challenge while local government tends to exceed their authorities without central permission and the local-central relations remain problematic.

Dr Wang Zhengxu then introduced the tiao-kuai system for us to further interpret the intra-party system. Basically, tiao explains the top-down relations that in a vertical level, lower-level department should be subordinate to higher one. For example, provincial tax department is subordinate to central tax department. While kuai represents a horizontal level that all different departments should be subordinate to the local host party organization (Guo, 2014). This mechanism may cause problems when a certain department received two different commands separately from higher-level department and local host party organization, it will be caught in a dilemma especially when the higher department stays same level with host party organization. More seriously thing is, kuai always functions more effectively than tiao. Dr David O’Brien in his “corruption” lecture then has mentioned about the hardship of anti-corruption. In spite of Xi Jingping’s remarkable swatting tiger movement, his fly-kicking behavior encountered with some intra-party difficulties. Linking this phenomenon and tiao-kuai system, after read some relevant readings, I got to understand what David called “intra-party” barriers. One of the most well-known intra-party supervision mechanism, the Discipline Inspection Commission (DIC) has experienced as a series of changes since it established. Recently in 2014, dual relationship system was reformed to vertical management, which means higher-level DIC can directly manage the lower-level one (ibid). However, actual dual relationship still remains because of its deep rootedness, which means exactly as the name of “dual relationship”, lower-level DIC is still led by both same-level Party Committee and high-level DIC. This kind of tiao-kuai system to a great extent prevents intra-party supervision because it is the Party Committee rather than high-level DIC who decides the income and promotion of DIC members. This problematic mechanism fully demonstrated that “kuai” functions more effective than “tiao”. Or in turn, it is this kind of tiao-kuai system which makes the intra-party supervision so difficult to implement, and increases the difficulty of anti-corruption movement. This reminds me of the necessary to build a more rational supervision mechanism inside party. However, David lifted this thought into a higher level: is the one-party system the root for the deficiency of supervision mechanism? Or can one-party system eradicate the corruption? This question reminds me of Action’s well-known saying cited in Venter (2015), “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Contrary to Xi Jingping’s confidence anti-corruption movement, questionable authen may always exist accompanying with the existence of the powerful one-party system.

To conclude, ET 4013 CN module has provided me some new points of view rethinking Chinese politics systems, including central-local relations pattern such as potentially problematic tiao-kuai system. My previous cognition about central government and local government on suppressing civil participation such as protests has been subverted because I found that different from Tiananman square event, central government tend to appease complaints through complying with the aspirations of people while local government hehaves conversely. Additionally, based on the lecture content of Dr David O’Brien and Dr Wang Zhengxu, I found the current tiao-kuai system problematic when dealing with anti-graft issues because the investigator is to some extent subordinate to those who under inspection, which is ridiculous for this supervision mechanism to function well. One-party system is also criticized by some scholars because of its absolute power which usually serves as a hotbed of corruption. Government and politics in contemporary China seems to be an everlasting learning class for me because every time I can update my cognition on the same issues and that it is an exciting study for doing researches in.

Word Account: 1634

Reference:

Brown, K. (2011). Ballot Box China: grassroots democracy in the final major one-party state (p. 40). London and New York: Zed Books.

Cai, Y. (2004). Managed participation in China. Political Science Quarterly, 119(3), 425-451.

Cai, Y. (2008). Local governments and the suppression of popular resistance in China. The China Quarterly, 193, pp. 24-42.

Cody, E. (2007). Text Messages Giving Voice to Chinese. Washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 15 December 2016, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062702962.html

Guo, X. (2014). Controlling Corruption in the Party: China’s Central Discipline Inspection Commission. The China Quarterly, 219, 597.

Tang, H. (2008). Xiamen PX: a turning point?. chinadialogue. Retrieved 18 December 2016, from https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1626-Xiamen-PX-a-turning-point-

Venter, J. (2015). ” Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”: South Africa 2015: magsmisbruik/abuse of power. Word and Action= Woord en Daad, 54(428), 19-22

Zhong, Y. (2003). Local government and politics in China: Challenges from below. ME Sharpe. pp. 3-4

Zhou, X. (2009). The institutional logic of collusion among local governments in China. Modern China.

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