Asian Studies (ASST)

ASST 1001 First Year Hindi I 3 Credits

The main objective of this year-long, introductory Hindi course is to enable students to develop usable proficiency in Hindi in speaking, reading, writing, listening, and knowledge of formal grammar. The primary text for the course is Rupert Snell’s (With Simon Weightman) Complete Hindi textbook with online audio, which develops each of these basic skills in parallel. Students’ progress in learning Hindi is greatly enhanced by learning the Devanāgarī writing system early in the semester. Thus, we will first focus upon learning this script with the aim of quickly abandoning the crutch of Romanization. After mastering the writing system, we will move on to learning grammar, reading, writing, speaking, etc. Learning is measured through regular quizzes, two midterms and a final project.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1002 First-Year Hindi II 3 Credits

This is an intensive beginning Hindi language class, following in the sequence after ASST 011. Our aim will be to master basic communicative skills and the fundamentals of Hindi grammar.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Mutual exclusion: ASST 012

ASST 1020 Intro to Contemp Written Hindi 3 Credits

This three-credit course begins with an introduction to the phonetics and orthographics of the Hindi language. Students are expected to master the script by the second week after which we will begin formal study of the elements of grammar which form the basis for all subsequent study. In this course, students will be expected to learn vocabulary elements that draw both from the Sanskrit tradition as well as their Perso-Arabic counterparts. This course is suitable for persons with very little knowledge of the written language as well as for those heritage speakers of Hindi/Urdu who lack familiarity with the script and formal elements of standard Hindi grammar. Assessments will include weekly homework and two mid-term exams.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1021 Hindi-Urdu Novice Low 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1022 Hindi-Urdu Novice High 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1023 IntrotoContempWrittenHindiII 1 Credit

The one-credit course will build upon ASST 020. Students will become more competent in basic and intermediate Hindi grammar and vocabulary. By the end of the fall semester, students will have completed all topics covered by Snell. In the second semester of the course, students move onto intermediate Hindi. Should students take both semesters, they should be prepared to undertake an intensive language program in India over the summer. ASST 020 is a prerequisite, or competence in the materials covered. Students have the option of taking this course Pass/Fail or for a grade.

Level: Undergraduate

Prerequisites: (ASST 020 or ASST 1020)

Grading: Pass/Fail Default

ASST 1024 IntrotoContempWrittenHindiIII 1 Credit

Students in this class should be familiar with most of the grammatical elements and vocabulary taught in the first year of Hindi studies. In this class, we will focus upon translating short pieces of literature drawn from literary collections, policy briefs and news reports. We will use these writings to exposit elements of grammar and specialized vocabulary.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1031 First-Year Urdu I 3 Credits

The main objective of this first-year Urdu course is to enable students to develop usable proficiency in Urdu in speaking, reading, writing, listening, and knowledge of formal grammar. After mastering the writing system, we will move on to learning grammar, reading, writing, speaking, etc. During this course, you will develop an understanding of Urdu reading, speaking, and writing. You will be introduced to the Urdu alphabet, numbers, and grammar. By the end of this course, you will have a functional vocabulary of about 500 words. You will be able to communicate using appropriate vocabulary and grammatical structure (e.g., greeting people, introducing self, giving directions, traveling, shopping, vacationing, ordering food, etc.); read and translate simple passages from Urdu to English and vice versa; demonstrate the ability to draft paragraphs using past, present, and future tense; effectively use the Urdu-English dictionary as a learning aid. Learning is measured through regular quizzes, two midterms, and a final project.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1032 First-Year Urdu II 3 Credits

Level: Undergraduate

Prerequisites: (ASST 031 or ASST 1031)

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1101 Second-Year Hindi-Urdu I 1 or 3 Credits

To enroll in this class, you must have passed First-Year Hindi or been tested into this course with the permission of the instructor. This year-long course builds upon the grammar elements learned during the first, year-long sequence and explores further aspects of grammar. The primary vehicle for exploring and deepening our understanding of Hindi will be the use of films, popular music, and short stories. Learning is measured through regular quizzes, two midterms, and a final project.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1102 Second-Year Hindi-Urdu II 3 Credits

Level: Undergraduate

Prerequisites: (ASST 101 or ASST 1101)

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1302 History of China II 3 Credits

Level: Undergraduate

Course attribute: XHIS name

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1521 Hindi-Urdu Intermediate Low 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 1522 Hindi-Urdu Intermediate High 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 2001 Second Year Hindi I 3 Credits

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Equivalent to ASST 101

ASST 2003 China'sRel.w/Israel/Palestine 1 Credit

The Middle East matters to China, and China regularly seeks to portray itself as an influential and engaged actor on Israel-Palestine affairs (IPA). Through probing diverse scholarly literature, students are challenged to look beyond the headlines and critically probe the evolution, nature, and depth of China-IPA relations, providing them the intellectual tools needed to understand these complex relations. By studying the interdependency and interconnectivity of domestic, regional, and global politics relevant to China-IPA relations, this course also enables students to situate major studied themes and concepts within broader historic and contemporary geopolitical contexts.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 2021 Hindi-Urdu Advanced Low 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 2022 Hindi-Urdu Advanced Mid 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 2031 Second-Year Urdu I 3 Credits

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 2212 Democracy in India 3 Credits

Home to 1.3 billion residents and roughly one out of every four voters on the planet, India is regularly touted as the “world’s largest democracy.” From independence in 1947 to the present, India has enjoyed a virtually uninterrupted seven-plus decades of democratic practice.

According to the two classic dimensions of democracy—contestation and participation—India appears to be extraordinarily vibrant. Political competition has hit new heights. Voter turnout has broken all previous records. And once disenfranchised groups have become pivotal political actors across the length and breadth of the country. However, in recent years, scholars, analysts, and commentators have issued repeated warnings that India risks becoming an “elections only” democracy as its public institutions, adherence to the rule of law, and commitment to liberal freedoms suffer serious erosion.

This course will examine the health of India’s democracy, both during elections as well as between them. The purpose of the course is to provide students with a probing introduction to the Indian political system and some of the key debates in the scholarly literature—which are increasingly linked to the daily news cycle. Students who take this course will enhance their presentation skills, learn to break down complex arguments into bite-size pieces, and refine their writing abilities.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 2250 Encountering Asia: Pol/Eco/Soc 3 Credits

Asia will be a part of your life. The region's economic growth has never been more deeply felt across the globe, while its strategic importance and political influence impact the international system profoundly. Home to almost half of the world's population, the source of much of the world's consumer goods, and the place where some of the world's most ancient and enduring civilizations emerged, Asia is an indispensable topic of investigation for all students of international affairs. This course provides an introduction to Modern Asia. Attention will be paid to how the history, politics, and economics of this vast region impact policy challenges for the U.S. and Asia today. No prior knowledge of Asia will be assumed, and students can come from any academic field. While politics is important to understanding Asia, the course will draw insights from many other fields, including philosophy, social and political sciences, pop culture, health, science, and education.

The instructor, an award-winning author, former White House official, and cable news analyst, will employ classic and contemporary readings, multimedia, music, and guest speakers to create an interactive classroom experience.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 2287 Korea and the World 3 Credits

This course investigates the theory and history behind Korea's relations with the major powers in Asia: Japan, China, Russia, and the United States. The course offers a rough mix of history, domestic politics, and foreign relations. It also approaches Korea through various theoretical lenses ranging from cognitive theories, national identity to balance of power, alliance theory, and sports diplomacy. We will cover a vast expanse of time, ranging from the Kanghwa treaty to the Donald Trump-Kim Jong-un summits. During the semester we will cover in relatively equal halves both North and South Korea. No previous background on Korea is required.

Level: Undergraduate

Course attribute: FS54 name

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate level students.

ASST 3100 CLab:JapaninKorea,KoreainJapan 3 Credits

This course and summer lab will explore the history of relations between Japan and Korea from the perspective of social and cultural interactions to understand historical memory issues in context. The Spring seminar will focus on topics ranging from early-modern diplomacy and trade to colonial rule, wartime mobilization, decolonization, and contemporary connections, including youth culture, J-pop, and K-pop. We will also explore social issues related to tourism, particularly the “dark tourism,” which will be one focus of the summer lab. The course's main objective will be to co-author a guidebook to sites that connect the two countries.

After the end of the semester in May, participants will embark for two weeks of fieldwork in South Korea and Japan. In addition to visiting historical sites and museums, we will meet with Korean and Japanese faculty and students to discuss historical memories and share experiences. Based on fieldwork during the trip, we will flesh out the guidebook for online publication. Enrollment is open to Main Campus undergraduates. There is no prerequisite but students must apply to participate.

Please note that students will be registered by their deans or SFS OGE staff for these courses, following the application review and interview.

Level: Undergraduate

Corequisites: ASST 3101

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Equivalent to ASST 4100

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate level students.

ASST 3101 CLabJapaninKor,KoreainJapanIFW 1 Credit

This C-Lab module accompanies the semester-long course (ASST 3100/HIST 3300) with two weeks' fieldwork in May. Students signing up for one are obligated to participate in the other, although the summer course can be taken for no credit.

Level: Undergraduate

Corequisites: ASST 3100

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 3310 Hist Memory of WWII in E.Asia 3 Credits

Historical Memory of World War II in East Asia: This course will examine the experiences of World War II in East Asia and how collective memories of the war play into national and regional identities in Japan, China, Taiwan, North Korea, and South Korea today. In particular, we will examine how the past continues to haunt contemporary geopolitical concerns in the region.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 3324 The Politics of Taiwan IFW 1 Credit

Registration in the class requires enrollment in ASST 3325, 3 cr course The Politics of Taiwan, and instructor's approval gained through a successful SFS Clab Application & selection

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 3325 The Politics of Taiwan 3 Credits

TBA

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 3326 Politics of China 3 Credits

This course provides students with an in-depth knowledge of China's domestic politics. The topics covered include China's modern political history (1949-present) and major themes in Chinese and comparative politics: political ideology, state-building, nationalism, political parties, bureaucratic politics, political economy, social policy, contentious politics, civil society, media politics, environmental politics, and China’s growing political influence on its own geographic periphery and the larger world. Although the focus of this course is on domestic politics, there will be some discussion of how international factors have affected China's political development and of how China compares with other countries.

Level: Undergraduate

Course attribute: FS54 name

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Mutual exclusion: GOVT 358

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate level students.

ASST 3332 Political Economy of Asia 3 Credits

This seminar examines the political determinants of various economic outcomes in Asia. Throughout the semester, we will examine the determinants of growth, the importance of institutions, the role of states in markets, strategies of development, the effects of political regime types, the interactions between bureaucrats, labor, and the private sector, rent-seeking, crisis, and the management of trade.

The course will build the substantive, theoretical, and empirical background of students. In particular, students will become familiar with the roots of the transformation of Asian economies, gain a background in major theories from the literature on international political economy, and learn to critically and analytically assess the empirical evidence for theoretical arguments on topics of political economics. This course is open to undergraduate students only. Students are expected to have a basic background in economics.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate level students.

ASST 3333 UsesofthePastinModernChina 3 Credits

This undergraduate seminar studies “places of memory” in modern China, or the sites, museums, monuments, and memories of the past. Integrating primary sources as well as interdisciplinary readings from anthropology, art history, cultural studies, and history, this course features case studies including the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, the Monument to the People’s Heroes, the Rent Collection Courtyard, and the ruins of Yuanmingyuan. These case studies will offer ways of thinking about official and unofficial history, and the role of the past in contemporary culture, society, and politics.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 3350 HKChina:Cross-BorderHistory 3 Credits

This undergraduate seminar studies the historical development of Hong Kong and China in relation to each other, from the colonial and late imperial experience to their shared histories in national and political movements, from postwar and post-1949 transformations to reform-era economic takeoff, culminating in the 1997 handover and recent political movements. The readings from the first half of the semester will come primarily from the literature in history, while the readings in the second half will draw from anthropology, sociology, and political science. Students will read both primary and secondary sources, and the course will culminate in an independent research paper on a topic of their own design.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 3375 Sports,Politics,Soft PowerinIR 3 Credits

This course looks at the role a non-traditional variable—sport—plays as a soft power variable in international relations. We will look at the links between sports and politics historically, and the degree to which international relations theory has taken adequate account of its impact. The course will look particularly at the role that sporting events have played in diplomacy, development, and national identity in Asia. We will explore hypotheses to help us understand how to frame, measure, and judge the impact of sports with an eye to studying the political significance of the Olympics historically and other mega-sporting events.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 3400 A History of Manchuria 3 Credits

As a historical "cradle of conflict" between a variety of competing ethnicities, empires, and nationalities, Manchuria is an important key to understanding the construction of the modern nation-state in East Asia from the 17th to 21st centuries. From the ethnically Manchu Qing Dynasty to imperial Russia, from the Japanese puppet-state of Manchukuo to the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China, this course will chart how rulers and intellectuals from a variety of ethnic and national contexts conceptualized "Manchuria" to further their own imperial and national aspirations.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4004 Trade,TrustDevelopment:SAsia 1 Credit

As the world’s economic center of gravity increasingly pivots to Asia, and as South Asia gradually enhances its role in the world economy, an economic understanding of the region becomes increasingly more important. This is a course about the evolution of South Asian countries, home to around 1.9 billion people, their contrasting development stories and paradigms, the economic and human interlinkages between them, and the vast untapped potential of those interlinkages. It is about the significant foregone development opportunities arising from insufficient regional engagement, that affect most countries in South Asia, including the three largest countries. As a region, most of South Asia was a part of successive empires, making cultural and economic interaction between countries a very natural phenomenon. After the Partition of 1947, and successive events thereafter, the region has contrived to create barriers to deeper engagement. This is not a course about India alone, nor about India-Pakistan. It is about South Asia.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4005 Trade,TrustDevelopment:SAsia 3 Credits

As the world’s economic center of gravity increasingly pivots to Asia, and as South Asia gradually enhances its role in the world economy, an economic understanding of the region becomes increasingly more important. This is a course about the evolution of South Asian countries, home to over 1.8 billion people, their contrasting development stories and paradigms, the economic and human interlinkages between them, and the vast untapped potential of those interlinkages. It is also about the significant foregone development opportunities arising from insufficient regional engagement, that affect most countries in South Asia, including the three largest countries.

This is not a course about India alone, nor about India-Pakistan. It is about South Asia.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4006 Ethnicity,Relig,Cnflct:SEAsia 3 Credits

Southeast Asia, a region comprised of 11 independent countries of Brunei, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Vietnam, is home to some of the greatest ethnic, linguistic, religious, and biocultural diversity in the world. This diversity has shaped the region’s social, cultural, and political formation as well as its dynamics and experience of conflict and violence. Diversity is indeed a regional challenge as political cleavage often occurs along the lines of ethnicity and religion. In some extreme cases, ethnoreligious identities have become a pretext for atrocities and even genocide. This course will introduce students to key issues and approaches to the study of ethnicity, religion, and conflict in the region. It offers a broad and comparative survey of cases that show various ways in which different actors in the region—both state and non-state actors—contend with this diversity. This course will also consider how ethnicity and religion are implicated in the broader issues of democracy, state formation, migration, and economic development. Drawing on readings from anthropology, sociology, political science, history, and media studies, this course will also allow students to explore the questions of how ethnicity and religion are made and unmade, how they are used to establish social groupings and hierarchy, and lastly, how religion and ethnicity have been mobilized for various political projects.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4040 Imperialism/Colonialism: Asia 3 Credits

This course seeks to provide an introduction to recent studies of colonialism and imperialism in East Asia, with particular focus on the Japanese empire. The course is structured thematically and comparatively, and is designed to question in what ways the experience of Asia represents world historical processes, and/or regional or ethnically specific characteristics. Concretely, the course will focus on three aspects: first, introduce the varieties of colonial societies in the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries; second, examine the role of colonial empires in the history of modern East Asia, including effects on nationalism, commodities and consumption, modernity, governance, gender relations, and other aspects; and third, analyze how Asian societies since 1945 have represented experiences of imperialism and colonialism in official and popular discourse.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4044 ThePacific:Past,Present,Future 3 Credits

This course is aimed at establishing literacy in the Pacific Islands, their storied histories, and their complex presence. It will take students through the Indigenous human geographies in the Pacific, the coming of Europeans, and the establishment of spheres of influence through various economies and imperial activities. It will pay close attention to the causes and consequences of power shifts, the imposition of imperial powers and resistance to it as well as the movement of Asian people into the island Pacific as indentured plantation laborers from the mid-C19th. It will investigate the building of tensions that led to World War Two and what happened in its aftermath. From here the course looks at the reasons the Pacific Islands have returned to western focus as the frontline of climate change and more urgently still, driven by massive and recent Chinese attention as an extension of its Belt and Road Initiative. As well as paying close attention to perspectives from Washington, Canberra, Wellington, Paris, and Beijing, this course will be Pacific-focused, giving much attention to Pacific island actors, voices, and perspectives, and framed around the urgent situation of the present. Information about the course instructor Patricia O'Brien, Ph.D., can be found at this link: https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/0031Q000025nA3OQAU/patricia-obrien

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate or Undergraduate level students.

ASST 4045 Gender Sexuality in S Asia 3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4046 After the Miracle 3 Credits

Although there is extensive literature within various disciplines on how East Asian developmental states achieved their economic miracles, the follow-up story is little known. What happened to these countries after the miracle? Are there any problems associated with the way they achieved their economic growth? This course will examine the economic, political, and social consequences of the Asian developmental state model, such as economic stagnation, gender inequality, and the quality of democracy from a comparative perspective.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Course attributes: FS42 name, FS54 name

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4047 Medicine Power in India 3 Credits

This course examines social dimensions of medicine, health and power in India. We begin with an exploration of the history of medicine in the colonial encounter to consider how disease, medicine, and public health reveal the interests, power, and limits of the British colonial empire. The focus will be on the social context of medicine and public health and on the lived experience of disease and medical care in postcolonial India. The course highlights the ways in which social structures of inequality relating to colonialism, race, class, caste, gender and religion complicate efforts to prevent and treat disease in India while also demonstrating how people negotiate structures of power in their efforts to prevent disease, endure illness and confront death with dignity. We will explore these issues through reading in-depth ethnographies and consider how knowledge gained through ethnographic research can help inform policymakers and practitioners involved in improving health and healthcare in the region. The course will be of interest to students of Asian Studies; science, technology and society studies; global health; and anthropology.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4051 Post 1979 Pakstn,Afghan,Iran 3 Credits

ASST_4051_01: Post 1979 Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran Syllabus Fall 2026 Day and Time: Tuesday—3-30 to 6-00 PM Instructor: Ambassador Touqir Hussain (Rtd) E-mail: th258@georgetown.edu Office hours: Tuesday 2-00 to 3-30 Course Description No single year in modern history has had more significant impact on the Muslim world than 1979. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran were at the epicenter of the year’s history making events whose consequences continue to live among us all. These included the Islamic revolution in Iran in February 1979 and the start of three decades and a half of Iran US tensions, and the execution of an elected Prime Minister by a military dictator in Pakistan setting up the long army rule and process of Islamization. Then came the US hostages crisis in Tehran in November and the burning of the US Embassy in Islamabad, signaling the merger of Pakistani and Iranian anti Americanism that began feeding a broader sentiment against the US in the Muslim world. The year ended however with its most consequential event: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. The US-led jihad against the Soviets, assisted by Pakistan, won but ended up as a bittersweet victory as it laid the foundation of a deadly extremist religious infrastructure that started beating to the rhythm of global Islamic revivalism unleashing uncontrollable forces of radicalism. They had a horrendous impact on the region and on the US and global security, the most tragic and visible sign of which was 9/11. And now another set of history changing events have taken place in the region in the past two to three years within Pakistan, and in Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan and India. And Iran’s own profile in the region has undergone a profound change as a result of first the Gaza war and then the US Israel war against it since 2025. Within Iran as well there has been a big shift in the power structure as IGRC expands its grip on power. The course will study all these far reaching changes. The course will look at all these dramatic and history changing developments and their complex intertwining with local, regional and global issues and challenges. It will examine how Pakistan’s national vision, embraced by years of authoritarian rule and troubled democracy, led to a weak institutional architecture that collided with its domestic tensions, opening up Pakistan to long years of instability and growing threat of extremism which only now are beginning to be brought under control. But internal challenges have not been fully resolved. The democracy was beginning to stabilize and Pakistan’s on going efforts against extremist and militant organizations were proceeding slowly but steadily. But the removal of Imran Khan through a no confidence move in early 2022 has plunged the country into new challenges. On the plus side however the country’s military and diplomatic profile has risen since 2025 war with India and its role as a mediator between US and Iran. The course will study the attempts by Iran to export its revolution, the development of its nuclear program, the challenges Iran posed to the US power in the Middle East and its allies. And the course will also look at the decades of strained relations between Iran and the US and the 2025-2026 US Iran war and its outcome. The course will study the war in Afghanistan and the unfinished fight against Al Qaeda, the newly arrived terrorist outfit in Afghanistan-Pakistan border region—the ISIS-K and its interplay with the Taliban and what role can be played in these conflicts by Pakistan which itself has been a target of TTP terrorism. Taliban face many challenges making it difficult for them to act against TTP which is engaged in terrorism against Pakistan from their bases in Afghanistan. That has worsened Taliban Pakistan relations. And finally with the lengthening strategic shadow of China over the region it will be interesting to see what role China may play in the future of Afghanistan. Also interesting to watch will be India’s role and that of Iran in this strategic powerplay likened by some to the ancient Great Game.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4052 Asia in Washington 3 Credits

This course focuses on the history of relations between the US and Asia through an exploration of Washington’s Asian landmarks. Students will identify, research, and document the evidence of cultural and social interactions in the nineteenth- and twentieth centuries, pairing present and bygone sites in the city with research that utilizes the university, city, and national archives. Classes will alternate between discussions of contextual readings, fieldwork, and presentations of our findings. The final projects will be an individual research paper and contributions to a shared website/guidebook that introduces Washington’s Asian heritage.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Equivalent to ASST 5010

ASST 4053 Korea's 20th-Century Wars 3 Credits

This course explores Korea’s long twentieth-century history through its engagement in regional and global conflicts. Focusing equally on geopolitics and social history, the course will examine Korea’s shifting significance in international affairs as well as how modern Korea’s institutions, culture, values, economy, and identity were transformed by its involvement in multiple global conflicts.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4070 SocietyTransnat'lIssues:SAsia 3 Credits

This course explores sociocultural dynamics of critical transnational issues in South Asia. Drawing from ethnographic research, the course examines topics of migration, gender, health, and environmental challenges that transcend national boundaries in South Asia.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Equivalent to ASST 5070

ASST 4078 ASEAN: Progr, Problms, Promise 3 Credits

With ten member states, a population of 630 million, strategic sea lanes, and growing economies, ASEAN is a force on the world's stage and a dynamic economic and political influence in an increasingly vital Southeast Asia. As the world's 7th largest economy. ASEAN provides a significant platform for multilateral engagement and integration within the Asia region. It is especially important to the United States -- as its 4th largest trading partner and a strategic ally in fighting the terrorist threat and handling issues like drug and human trafficking, non-proliferation, transnational crime, and health and humanitarian concerns. This seminar will examine ASEAN's formation in 1967, policies, and progress until now. It will also discuss past and present problems, particularly the Rohingya crisis and the South China Sea dispute. The course will conclude by looking at opportunities ahead for ASEAN and its continued promise – for the vibrant SE Asia region, Asia, and the world.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Course attribute: FS54 name

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate or Undergraduate level students.

ASST 4089 US-SE Asian Rel:Post 9/11 Wrld 3 Credits

This seminar course will examine the relationship between the United States and Southeast Asia in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist bombings. These bombings led the United States to pay more attention to Southeast Asia due to the links between several militant Islamic groups in the region and the Al Qaeda network. Since 2013, the terrorist threat has increased with the rise of the Islamic State (IS), which remains a threat even though it has lost much territory. The course will cover U.S. relations on the political, economic, and socio-cultural levels with the eleven countries of Southeast Asia: Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The United States is especially concerned about Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4413 Japan's Search for Strategy 3 Credits

This course will examine the search for security, prosperity and identity in modern Japan. The course opens with an introduction to the enduring elements of Japan’s Strategic Culture. In the second session the course introduces the Yoshida Doctrine of anti-communism, pro-business economic policies, alignment with the United States and passive security policy that guided Japan’s international orientation throughout the Cold War. The next three classes explore the post-Cold War transformation of Japan’s domestic political economy as well as legacy issues from the “1955 System” and the Second World War that have shaped the strategic debate. The second half of the class then turns outward to explore the dynamics of Japan’s contemporary relations with the United States and the other powers in Asia. The final class returns to the question of Japan’s strategy drawing on these case studies.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4420 Korean History on Film 3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4421 New Dir: Chinese For Policy 3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Course attribute: FS54 name

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4431 South Asia: Iss of War/Peace 3 Credits

South Asia has changed and so have the issues of war and peace there. But South Asia has changed. The major drivers of change have been the end of the Cold War, the rise of globalization, global Islamic revivalism, and the post-9/11 US engagement in the region. The region has come to present economic opportunities, strategic challenges, and security threats like the threat of terrorism and extremism as never before. Along with these changes has come the phenomenal rise of China. India too has registered impressive economic and technological progress. The US, through its extraordinary new relationship with India, hopes to contain the Chinese power and influence in the region and beyond and seek Pakistan’s cooperation in meeting the security threats. The region also faces other challenges such as the dangers of nuclear proliferation, and the troubled Afghanistan where prospects of stability remain uncertain as the Taliban face challenges in gaining effective control of the country due to public resistance and the continued presence of transnational terrorist groups. The weight of the past also continues to oppress the present as old conflicts lurk in the background overlapping with the new ones in the region. Kashmir issue remains unresolved keeping ever present the danger of war between India and Pakistan which could conceivably turn nuclear especially as the two countries have still not settled on stable nuclear doctrines and concepts of deterrence. The nuclear competition goes on. Kashmir insurgency has intensified after Burhani Wani’s killing and India’s harder line under Prime Minister Modi especially as reflected in his decision on August 5 2019 to end Kashmir’s special status under the Constitution. And the historical tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan live on. Pakistan’s traditional security concerns relating to Afghanistan and India have merged, raising fear of encirclement. Increasing ties between India and the US have also aggravated Pakistan’s security concerns. Both Pakistan and India seem to be engaged in a kind of re-enactment of the ancient “great game” in Afghanistan complicating the country’s stabilization and also the international community’s efforts to fight forces of extremism and terrorism especially Al Qaeda and ISIS. How will Afghanistan’s future be affected by the return of the Taliban? Will Afghanistan become peaceful or descend into a civil war yet again? The course will focus on this whole range of dangers South Asia faces and presents and potential causes for conflict and war and also study the prospects for peace, the need as well as compulsions for it which have never been greater. Globalization, and rise of China and India, and the opening up of Central Asia offer new economic opportunities to the people of the region and the outside world through possible projects like gas pipelines, transit trade and much talked about New Silk Road –the American version and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative of whose flagship project CPEC is focused on Pakistan. The instructor is a former Ambassador of Pakistan who will bring to the teaching of this course his insights and expertise as a long-time policy practitioner and his experience as an academic. The course will blend a theoretical approach with elements of practical diplomacy. This course is a blend of seminar/lecture style straddling the undergrad and graduate needs and the success of the class would very much depend on student contribution. The instructor will introduce, provide context to, and summarize ideas, and will bring his first-hand knowledge of international affairs to bear on the extensive reading that the students are expected to do. And then the class will discuss and debate. Students will be challenged to develop bold and innovative habits of thought and analysis.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate or Undergraduate level students.

ASST 4432 Japan's Politics Society 3 Credits

This class is designed to introduce students to the key features and puzzles in contemporary Japanese politics, domestic policy, and foreign policy. We will examine (1) the role of political institutions in shaping modern (postwar) Japanese economic development, political behavior, and political organization, (2) the various actors within the Japanese political system (e.g., voters, politicians, parties, factions, bureaucrats, and firms) and how political institutions guide or constrain their behavior, and (3) how the incentives provided by these institutions and actors have led to various policy outcomes across a number of topics such as: defense and security policy, economic and industrial policy, energy and climate change, gender equality, immigration, international trade, population aging, relations with neighbors, and welfare policy.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4444 Chinese Military Power 3 Credits

TBA

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4496 US Strat in Asia: Hist Pract 3 Credits

This course explores the evolution of American grand strategy towards Asia since the birth of the Republic and applies those lessons to contemporary policy challenges in the region. The course begins with a general definition of “grand strategy” and a consideration of the strengths and weaknesses that American geography, culture and institutions bring to its practice. Key issues will include the intersection of security, commerce and values in the definition of American interests; the impact of the American system of “checks and balances” on the conceptualization and implementation of grand strategy; and the role of external threats in shaping American strategic thinking. Subsequent classes will examine distinct chapters or turning points in American strategic approaches to Asia, returning to the template established in the first class to consider what factors caused new strategic concepts to emerge and what explained their relative success and failure in implementation. In the final part of the course, students will design a grand strategy for U.S. Asia policy today.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4500 Congressional Pwr Asia Policy 3 Credits

The purpose of this seminar is to help participants understand the power of Congress in the development of America’s Asia policy. It will focus on a series of case studies since the end of the Cold War, among them, Burma policy, normalization of relations with Vietnam, China’s WTO accession, the US-India civil nuclear agreement, Taiwan arms sales, Hong Kong policy, TPP, US-China mil-mil relations, North Korea sanctions, CFIUS Reform, and AUMF/War Powers. Drawing on the Congressional Record and hearing transcripts, as well contemporary accounts of the policy debates in the media, the course will examine the political dynamics, Congressional procedures, personalities, constituencies, executive branch perspectives and foreign policy environments at play in each case. It will also incorporate discussions with practitioners. The course will be open to graduate students and will meet once weekly for approximately two-and-a-half hours. Class will consist of minimal lecture. It will require students to study and internalize the perspectives of key figures and/or institutions in the debates for purposes of class discussion. Based on the discussions, each student will draft two page memo advising a Senator on how to vote in each of six case studies. There will be a take-home final examination.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4555 Global Medicine and Technology 3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

ASST 4930 Asian Studies Program: 3 Credits

Asian Studies Program courses. Please review section text for course descriptions.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 4960 Dept Sem:Sr Res Sem On Asia 3 Credits

This seminar is designed to assist senior candidates for the Certificate in Asian Studies with the research and writing of the Asian Studies Certificate Research Paper. Participants in the seminar are required to attend weekly meetings and undertake formal writing exercises aimed at production of the Research Paper. Grades are based on participation in the seminar and the quality of the final paper.

Level: Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5002 War and Peace in Asia 3 Credits

This course focuses on the historical contexts of conflicts and resolutions in East Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries. Focusing primarily on China, Japan, and Korea, weekly readings will examine the many ways in which war—and the discourse about war—shaped those nations’ identities. The connections among militarism, nationalism, and society will be explored in a number of ways: through state-building enterprises, emerging social and cultural practices and values, everyday life during wartime and peace; and collective memorializations. Course materials include literary works, historical writings, and other cultural forms, such as art and film.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5004 Topics: Modern Korean History 3 Credits

This course provides an introduction to some of the current issues in modern Korean history through selected readings. Moving chronologically through the 19th- and 20th centuries, it will cover major topics and issues as well as an historiographical examination of major scholarship.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5010 Asia in DC 3 Credits

This course focuses on the history of relations between the US and Asia through an exploration of Washington’s Asian landmarks. Students will identify, research and document the evidence of cultural and social interactions in the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, pairing present and bygone sites in the city with research that utilizes the university, city, and national archives. Classes will alternate between discussions of contextual readings, fieldwork, and presentations of our findings. The final projects will be an individual research paper and contributions to a shared website/guidebook that introduces Washington’s Asian heritage.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5015 Cultures:Modernization:E Asia 3 Credits

This seminar will explore the meanings of the elusive term “modernization” and the things that were done in its name in twentieth-century Asia, where one country after another became a laboratory for experiments to transform agriculture, industrial production, and the ways people lived their lives. “Modernize” in this context is a transitive verb, describing intentional action, not merely a natural process of becoming. With the help of historians and anthropologists, as well as works of fiction and film, we will examine acts of modernizing and being modernized at the level of local and individual experience. How did modernizers view the people they were seeking to modernize? How did modernization campaigns affect communities and households, and class and gender relations within them? What ideals and dangers did modernization represent for individuals caught in the middle of rapid social change? Unlike the twentieth-century American social scientists who sought to define a universal paradigm of “modernization,” we will excavate the multiple, distinct meanings invested in the idea in different times and places by different historical actors, including the social scientists themselves.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5017 The Silk Road 3 Credits

The silk road (or silk roads) is a term used to describe routes used by travelers, merchants, monks and others across the Eurasian continent, or by sea between Asia and the Mediterranean basin. More broadly, however, the notion of "silk road" encompasses the long term trans-Eurasian exchange of goods, crops, art, ideas, religion and other things, starting from when humans first fanned out across the old world. The question at the center of this course, then, will be "what has been the nature of trans-Eurasian exchanges, and what has been their historical impact?" In investigating this question, we will learn something about the basic dynamics and high points of Central Asian history, and tune in at various points to the history of China, India, the Islamic world, Russia and Mediterranean Europe. The course will be mainly discussion format, and students will develop and present research projects focused on one of the things exchanged cross the silk roads, for example, a disease, a precious material, a religion, or a technology.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5018 Cent. Eurasia:World Crossroads 3 Credits

This course offers an introduction to the history of Central Eurasia from prehistoric times to the present, focusing on its key role in phenomena ranging from the rise of Islam to the Mongol Empire and Soviet socialism.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5020 Growth:Chinese Military Power 3 Credits

This course will explore the origin, role, and transformation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into one of the world’s most capable armed forces. Most of the focus will be on the contemporary period and look at the development of the PLA since Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping reformed it after the 1979 border conflict with Vietnam. Major topics covered will include the lessons learned in the 1979 border war, the role of the military in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, the 1995 missile crisis with Taiwan, the US-China EP-3 crisis of 2001, and the current standoff with its neighbors in the East and South China Seas. It will also look at the Chinese military as an instrument of statecraft, contemporary civil-military relations, the evolution of Chinese power projection capabilities, and Chinese nuclear doctrine.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5023 Asian History on Film 3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5024 Chinese Politics 3 Credits

This course provides students with an in-depth knowledge of China's domestic politics. The topics covered include China's modern political history (1949-present), political culture, regime characteristics, political economy, and state-society relations. Although the focus of this course is on China's domestic politics, there will be some discussion of how international factors have affected China's political development and how China compares with other countries.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5025 Korea and the World 3 Credits

This course investigates the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of modern Korea. The course offers a rough mix of history, domestic politics, and foreign relations. It also approaches the empirics of Korea through various theoretical lenses ranging from identity to balance of power to alliance theory to sports diplomacy. We will cover a vast expanse of time, ranging from the Kanghwa treaty to Kim Jong-un. The course is divided into four sections. The first is an understanding of the traditional historical and Cold War context of Korea's external relations. The second assesses the drivers of Korea’s relations with the region, including Japan, the United States, China, and Russia. The next section is a three-week unit on North Korea. The last section investigates the policy priorities and potential pitfalls in Korea's path to unification as well as the implications of a united Korea on the balance of power in East Asia. No previous background on Korea is required, but some basic knowledge of postwar Korean history is recommended.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Mutual exclusion: ASST 553

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5026 Pacific Empires 3 Credits

This new graduate seminar will explore recent research on the history of imperialism, settlement, migration, resource extraction and trade in the Pacific Ocean from the late eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. The focus will be on environmental, trans-regional and inter-cultural perspectives. Nineteenth-century topics to be examined will include how European exploration transformed indigenous island societies and natural environments; and how European and American desire for products such as whale oil and sea-bird droppings (guano), along with Chinese desire for products such as otter pelts and sandalwood, further altered the relationship between humans and the ocean. The California gold rush will be considered from the perspective of Hong Kong and Southern China. The Japanese migration eastward, which began in the 1880s, will also be examined. For the twentieth century, the focus will be particularly on the U.S. and Japan, the two empires that dominated the Pacific politically and militarily. Decades before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, there was talk of war between these two powers—not over Japan’s invasion of China but over the expansionist ambitions of both countries in the Pacific. In the years following World War II, the United States brought former Japanese territories under its control and inherited elements of the institutions and technology of Japanese imperial rule. We will examine cases such as Okinawa and Hawaii, societies that bear the strong cultural imprint of both Pacific empires.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5029 Congressional Pwr Asia Policy 3 Credits

The purpose of this seminar is to help participants understand the power of Congress in the development of America’s Asia policy. It will focus on a series of case studies since the end of the Cold War, among them, Burma policy, normalization of relations with Vietnam, China’s WTO accession, the US-India civil nuclear agreement, Taiwan arms sales, Hong Kong policy, TPP, US-China mil-mil relations, North Korea sanctions, CFIUS Reform, and AUMF/War Powers. Drawing on the Congressional Record and hearing transcripts, as well contemporary accounts of the policy debates in the media, the course will examine the political dynamics, Congressional procedures, personalities, constituencies, executive branch perspectives and foreign policy environments at play in each case. It will also incorporate discussions with practitioners.

The course will be open to graduate students and will meet once weekly for approximately two-and-a-half hours. Class will consist of minimal lecture. It will require students to study and internalize the perspectives of key figures and/or institutions in the debates for purposes of class discussion. Based on the discussions, each student will draft two page memo advising a Senator on how to vote in each of six case studies. There will be a take-home final examination.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

ASST 5030 Illicit Economies in Asia 3 Credits

This course examines the "hidden" side to Asia's transnational economies. It introduces students to the dynamics and history behind how countries deal with clandestine flows of goods, people, and services across borders. The first half of the course will explore current debates and different scholarly approaches to illicit economies and underground activities. In the second half, we will focus on issues of human and drug trafficking, illegal finance, undocumented migration, as well as disease and displacement that thread across South, Southeast and East Asia since the early 20th century. This course emphasizes the importance of transnational and historical context for understanding the challenges that illicit economies pose for many Asian countries today. There are no pre-requisites to take this course.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5031 Sovereign Risk and Asia 3 Credits

Sovereign risk is the risk that a national government will default on its debt obligations. For most of the post-World War II era, sovereign risk was mainly a concern facing creditors to emerging market governments. However, in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008, in some advanced countries government debt has grown to levels only previously seen in wartime while the ongoing COVID pandemic is pushing sovereign debt even higher to historical levels, a trend that has undermined the creditworthiness of governments formerly judged to be of the lowest risk. This course takes the position that deficits and debt matter, although students are welcome to challenge that view. It will provide a multifaceted view of sovereign risk, primarily through the lens of credit rating agency methodologies. It will examine the interplay of economic, institutional, fiscal, financial market and geopolitical factors that influence sovereign credit quality. It will focus on sovereign case studies and examine common features of debt crises—namely, the 1980s Latin America debt crisis which engulfed the Philippines, the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and the effect of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis on Asian sovereigns. While the focus is on Asia, the course will examine the watershed Greek default and debt crisis of 2009-2018 and a contentious triple-A downgrade of the U.S. government in 2011. The course will also examine the recent rise of China as a major creditor to developing countries as well as the fiscal and economic effects of the COVID pandemic on the creditworthiness of advanced and developing countries. The final project for the course will be in-class oral presentations in the format of a mock sovereign credit rating committee. At the conclusion of the course, students will: (1) develop an understanding of the evolution of sovereign risk since the 1980s and rise of global bond markets, (2) be conversant on the interplay of factors influencing sovereign credit risk (3) be capable of taking a substantive opinion of relative sovereign credit quality. Grading consists of weekly, short writing assignments and the final project; class participation will be a key factor. This semester, the course will feature one guest lecturer, the head of Moody’s Investors Service Macro-Board and former director of their sovereign default analysis work. The instructor will draw on his experience gained over three decades, including as the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regional manager for Moody’s Investors Service in Singapore and as an emerging market economist at the Institute of International Finance in Washington, DC. He is currently the president and CEO of The Korea Society in New York City and he also teaches at Columbia University’s graduate School of International and Public Affairs.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5032 Japan's Domestic Politics 3 Credits

This course will examine Japan's new politics and how they shape Tokyo's policy choices. The course will be divided into four sections. The first will examine the 1955-system and its aftermath. This section will compare and contrast single-party dominance in Japan (the 1995-system that shaped Japan's governance until 1993) and the two decade long effort to build new political parties beginning with the reforms set in motion in the early 1990s. Third, we will examine the results of this on-going political reform in Japan in three policy areas: managing the Japanese economy, coping with demographics and the transformation to an aging society, and adapting to a new regional strategic environment. Finally, the course will conclude with discussion of some of the ideas that shape contemporary debate in Japan. This section will consider some of the critical issues shaping Japanese citizen activism, including: What factors are motivating Japanese voter behavior today? Is there a growing sense of nationalism in Japan? Will Japanese embrace the notion of revising their Constitution? What was the impact on Japanese society of the 3.11 disasters? Students will be assigned a research paper on a topic of their choosing to analyze the political influences shaping Japanese policy today.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Equivalent to INAF 533

ASST 5033 Ethnic Politics 3 Credits

In an increasingly interconnected world, many societies are becoming more ethnically diverse. This diversity presents both challenges and opportunities in interethnic relations. Why are some societies prone to ethnic conflicts while others are able to achieve interethnic cooperation? Do ethnically heterogeneous societies have less growth or higher inequality than more homogeneous societies? Are ethnically heterogeneous societies less likely to provide for public goods than homogeneous societies? In order to answer these questions among others, the course aims to build an understanding of how ethnicity and politics interact from a comparative perspective. By examining theory and evidence across a wide range of countries, students will learn to employ a rigorous analytical framework with which to analyze ethnic politics across a wide range of cases.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Mutual exclusion: ASST 710

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5035 Sports,Politics,Soft PowerinIR 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5040 US/TaiwanCSR:ChngeContnuity 3 Credits

This seminar examines the evolution of U.S.-Taiwan and cross-Strait relations from the end of World War II until the present. It focuses on the critical moments and key issues affecting these relationships and the respective policies of Taiwan, China and the United States. It also looks at domestic developments, especially with respect to Taiwan's political and social transformation over the past two decades, and their impact on these ties. Finally, the seminar concludes with a discussion of current trends in cross-Strait relations and their policy implications.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5041 Asia's Nationalisms 3 Credits

Nationalism has become a widely used concept in political science, and yet there is no consensus on its definition. For some, it reflects simply a frame for human identity, a notional nation to call home. For others, nationalism represents the mobilization of individuals around the cause of the nation, and can have a far bolder intention. In today’s global politics, nationalism is often seen as a reaction to, and hindrance of a globalizing world. In some instances, nationalism is seen as globalism’s antidote, while in other instances it reflects a desire to repel or resist the transformative impact of a world increasingly intruding into national communities. In Asia, this concept has had many incarnations. Largely associated with the arrival of Western imperialism, the nation-state seemed an imposter in Asia especially to those who had been educated in the West but who sought to give voice to their culture’s identity. From the early decades of the twentieth century, Asia’s leaders – its scholars, its politicians and its military commanders – have deliberated on this concept of the nation and of their nation’s identity in the world. Nationalism in the early twenty-first century Asia seems to be organized around the conflict that redrew the boundaries of Asian societies, and the balance of power that it fostered in its wake. History, and its reimagining, provides ample fodder for Asia’s contemporary nationalist impulses. This course will explore the various episodes and advocates of nationalism in Asia. Beginning with some of the early reactions on this modern concept of the nation and whether it suited their own societies, we will explore the evolution and reframing of nationalism across Asia.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5044 Makers of Modern Asia 3 Credits

This course will examine the role of national leaders in East Asia. The semester is divided into three sections. The first section will review different approaches to leadership studies from the fields of social psychology and political science and then survey the historical and cultural context of Asian leadership styles (Confucianism, Bushido, Buddhism, etc.). The second section will focus on the political lives and legacies of the first wave of post-war nation-state builders in East Asia, including: Yoshida Shigeru, Lee Kuan Yew, Deng Xiaoping, Kim Il Sung and Park Chung Hee. The third section of the class will explore contemporary leaders in Japan, China, Korea and Southeast Asia, as well as their prospective successors and rivals. The class will conclude with consideration of how leadership dynamics may shape the future of Asia’s march towards prosperity and quest for security.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5050 Korean Politics 3 Credits

This course examines the history, domestic politics, and foreign relations of South and North Korea. The course will survey the Korean peninsula’s modern history, beginning with Japanese colonialism and moving on to partition and the establishment of two separate Koreas, Cold War politics, the Korean War, South Korea’s democracy movement, and the present-day North Korean nuclear and humanitarian crises, among other topics. The course will conclude by considering the possibility and implications of a future unified Korea on the balance of power in East Asia.

Since the division of the Korean peninsula in 1945, South Korea has developed into one of the largest trading nations in the world with a vibrant democratic polity. North Korea, isolated, destitute, and now ruled by a third-generation hereditary dictatorship, has descended into a perpetually aid-dependent state that maintains internal control through extreme repression. What does the future hold for the two Koreas? Special attention will be given to the North’s strategy of brinkmanship, the implications of the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, potential pitfalls and opportunities of unification, and an analysis of U.S. policy toward North Korea.

The course aims to provide students with the information necessary to analyze and understand present-day South and North Korea. By providing a survey of the modern Korean peninsula, the course will enable students to place contemporary issues such as the ongoing North Korean nuclear threat in their historical context. The course also aims to provide students with practical tools that will be useful in dealing with policy issues.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5051 Conflict Order in SE Asia 3 Credits

In recent decades, vast political and economic changes throughout Southeast Asia have combined with the region’s strategic importance to yield a wide range of security issues that have challenged countries in the region. This seminar examines domestic issues such as regime instability, insurgencies, and organized crime as well as international issues such as terrorism and maritime disputes in the South China Sea. The course draws upon theoretical frameworks from comparative politics and international relations to analyze the causes of security and insecurity throughout the region. Through this process, students will build an understanding of various conflicts and sources of insecurity in Southeast Asia.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

ASST 5052 Asian Economic Development 3 Credits

TBA

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5054 Monuments, Museums, and Memory 3 Credits

This course explores the subject of monuments as sites of political, historical, cultural, and ceremonial significance. Focusing on a collection of iconic structures worldwide, the course examines how and why monuments are made; what forces transform them into symbols of national identity, cultural otherness, and/or world heritage; and the impact of tourism, heritage management, and nationalism in recent years. Roughly half of the case studies will be located in Asia, supplemented by student research that gives the course a global dimension. Bi-weekly reports, one major research paper.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5056 Gender Dynamics in Asia 1.5 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5058 Int’l History of Divided Korea 3 Credits

ASST 558 International History of Divided Korea Prof. Kathryn Weathersby This course examines the difficult issue of the division of Korea into two hostile, ideologically polarized states. It explores how the division came about, how relations between the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have evolved, and why this situation remains so difficult to resolve. The course has three objectives: 1) for students to gain foundational knowledge of the persons, ideas, and events that have created and prolonged the division; 2) for students to become acquainted with the most important literature on the subject; 3) for students to gain deeper knowledge of one particular issue and improve their research and analysis skills by producing a 20-page research paper on their selected topic. Since the division of Korea has to an unusual degree been shaped by forces outside the peninsula, the course will focus particular attention on the roles of international actors and events. Classes will include both lectures and discussion. Before each class students will submit a 2-page memo with a succinct summary and analysis of that week’s reading. Grades will be based on the memos, research paper, and participation in class discussion.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5059 LawoftheSeaPol/Security:EAsia 3 Credits

The seas are one of the main arenas of great power competition today. Nowhere is this clearer than in the South China Sea, which began as a quarrel between China, Taiwan, and four Southeast Asian states, but which has since emerged as one of the defining issues in US-China relations, the relationship which is likely to have the greatest impact on peace and stability, and the strategic and economic contours of the region and beyond in the decades to come. The waters of this relationship, unfortunately, are far from placid and the South China Sea has become one of Asia’s most dangerous flashpoints. China has militarized the features it occupies and the risk of incidents at sea and air have increased, particularly in the last half a year. The United States also risks being drawn into a conflict by its allies in the region.

This course will cover the scope of the South China Sea dispute (though often conflated, the dispute, in fact, covers three different baskets of disagreement: competing territorial claims, disagreement over maritime entitlements, and quarrels over freedoms of the seas); what’s at stake for the various actors; the history of the law of the sea and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); provisions in UNCLOS relevant to the dispute (maritime entitlements and baselines, the regime of islands, navigation rights, and dispute resolution); the legal and strategic position of claimants (China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei); the landmark July 2016 tribunal award in the Philippines case against China—what the case decided and, importantly, what it did not; and the position of important non-claimant regional actors (Indonesia, Singapore and ASEAN) and extra-regional players, in particular, the United States. The course will also examine the US Freedom of Navigation Program and its purpose and role.

The South China Sea dispute matters. It threatens regional stability. It has also emerged as a proxy for strategic competition between the United States and China. Whether great power contestation in the South China Sea takes place within the confines of international law and norms or is untrammeled by them will have implications for how competition there and elsewhere is likely to unfold moving forward. Identifying the circumstances under which international law and norms are complied with and when behavior falls foul of them could point to ways in which parties interested in defending a rules-based international order might shape outcomes.

In considering the actors and tools for promoting peace and prosperity, students of global affairs and politics would do well to add international law and the legitimacy it brings to their toolkit for achieving desired foreign policy results. Especially when some are heralding the end of a rules-based order in favor of a deals-based one, examining how international law, in this case, the law of the sea, helps to regulate state behavior and promote security, is critical. This course, apart from giving students insight into the politics and security of the region, will also give students an appreciation of the important nexus between international law, politics, and security.

Professor: Lynn Kuok, Ph.D.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5060 The Chinese Economy 3 Credits

This course aims to provide students a broad understanding of the Chinese economy following Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 reform and opening, with a particular focus on economic trends, the tension between state control of the economy and private sector innovation, and economic decision making in the Xi Jinping era. After charting the key turning points in the Chinese economy – reform and opening and WTO accession - the course will explore current domestic structural challenges, industrial and technology policy, trade relations with key partners, financial sector reform, energy and the environment, and China’s overseas investment in the context of “One Belt, One Road.” The course is aimed at practitioners and improving their understanding of China’s impact on private enterprise, the global trading system, and China’s trading partners. Assignments will be focused on practical application of this knowledge through formulation of policy memos, simulations, and classroom debate on Chinese policy tools and goals. Students can expect 15-20 pages of homework during the course, and a take-home final exam.

The course will be open to graduate-level students and will meet once a week in the evenings for 2.5 hours.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

ASST 5061 ChineseAppr:Sci,State,Strat 3 Credits

Engaging China cannot be limited to a singular perspective. The complexity of interactions between the United States and China for more than 100 years requires a more in-depth analysis. With this course, students explore American as well as Chinese perspectives on the governance of China, religious freedom, human rights, and differing strategies of political and military engagement. As a starting point for exploring the different principles of Western and traditional Chinese approaches, the course highlights the scientific principles of Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine. This offers insights into different approaches to public healthcare, managing well-being, and the treatment of illnesses. This course is designed for students who look for an opportunity to develop nuanced comparative insights into Chinese-American relations, in order to maximize access and understanding of different and fascinating systems of organizing society, science, and international relations.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5062 Indo-PacificEconomicDiplomacy 3 Credits

This seminar will tackle the policy approaches that the nations of the Asia-Pacific have taken externally toward one another to speed their own nation’s economic growth and development. The emphasis will be on economic statecraft and national strategies, while also addressing tactics of diplomacy and negotiation. Topics will range from trade negotiations to economic sanctions to technology friction to plurilateral diplomatic “architecture,” with closest examination given to the motivations and strategies of the United States, China, Japan and the ASEAN governments. There are no specific prerequisites, but students are encouraged to come to the seminar with a basic working knowledge of the history and politics of Asia-Pacific countries. Instructor: Ambassador (ret.) Kurt Tong

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5063 COVID19Transnat’lProblms:Asia 3 Credits

The COVID-19 epidemic has dramatically changed Asia and its place in the global order. But how exactly? This course surveys the impact of COVID-19 upon the politics, economies, societies of China, Korea, Japan, and countries of South and Southeast Asia, with emphasis on the transnational nature of the challenges they face. It provides students with analytical tools for assessing the nature of and possible solutions to such transnational problems, combined with cutting-edge country-specific insights about COVID-19 through guest lectures by faculty in the Asian Studies Program and external experts.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

ASST 5065 Decolonization in S/SE Asia 3 Credits

This course examines the historical processes through which European colonial possessions in South and Southeast Asia became sovereign and independent nations during the mid-twentieth century. In the decade following World War II, Europe's former colonies in South and Southeast Asia, one by one, gained independence: Indonesia from the Dutch in 1945, Philippines from the USA in 1946, British India was partitioned into independent India and Pakistan in 1947, British Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) gained independence the following year. After a brutal war, French Indochina French Indochina became independent Vietnam and Cambodia in 1953 and Laos in 1954. British Malaya became free Malaysia in 1957. In 1997, Hong Kong - the last European possession in the region - was transferred back to China. This course examines the historical processes of decolonization across this region, from anti-colonial liberation movements and wars through which these countries gained freedom to the post-colonial challenges of nation and state-building that followed the attainment of formal independence. The course will take a comparative and historical approach to the following question: how does one create sovereign and independent states out of the remnants of Europe's colonial empires?

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5066 APracticalIntrotoDataAnalysis 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5067 US,China,andtheWarofIdeas 3 Credits

This course will teach students theoretical and practical aspects of information warfare between the United States and China. Students will dive into the history of Chinese propaganda and the U.S. efforts to counteract it, from the 1970s to today. Students will also examine the role of Chinese disinformation within the United States. The course will give students an analytical toolkit for understanding the effectiveness of communications strategies used by U.S. government officials and provide an introduction to key concepts involved in the study of communications strategy and public diplomacy. The emphasis will be on functional training, showing how U.S. officials, analysts, disinformation experts and others work to identify and counter Chinese propaganda.

Through books and articles about the U.S.-China relationship, field trips, as well as American movies altered for Chinese audiences, this course will provide students with a foundation in the art of public messaging. Students will gain knowledge crucial for Asia expertise, and become adept at writing policy memos, think-tank reports, op-eds, and rapid-response notes for journalists, and learn how to grapple with hot-button global issues in real time. The course will encompass expeditions into the city to visit a Tiananmen Square memorial, archival research, and spirited discussions with guest speakers, including leading journalists and authors who have written extensively on China, as well as former government officials steeped in the subject.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5068 US-Japan Relations 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5070 SocietyTransnat’lIssues:SAsia 3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5072 US National Security and China 3 Credits

This course will examine US national security decision-making in the context of China, focused on the past 5-10 years to the present. The course will examine the following questions: What are/should be US national security objectives with respect to China? Is there an alternative to a competitive framework and what aspects are zero-sum? Who holds an advantage in various dimensions and what are the trends? What are the opportunities for cooperation? Students will review and analyze relevant US policy shifts over the past decade and the consequences thereof, with the goal of anticipating future actions or trends. Specific dimensions of the relationship to be covered include ideology, economics, technology, security, and diplomacy.

Requirements: Students should have a working knowledge of international relations of the Indo-Pacific region in the modern era. It is strongly recommended that students enroll in this course after completing at least one other course with a focus on contemporary China. Students are expected to maintain awareness of current national and international events and news, especially as they relate to US-China dynamics.

Course Instructor: The class professor is Mr. Ivan Kanapathy. His biography is enclosed: https://www.csis.org/people/ivan-kanapathy

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5073 Political Economy of NE Asia 3 Credits

This course will explore the political origins and consequences of various economic outcomes in Northeast Asia. We will study some of the most compelling political and economic arguments that explain why and how the relationship between political and economic processes converged and diverged over time in China, Japan, and Korea. We will learn to develop our own answers to unanswered questions, such as whether authoritarianism was necessary for Northeast Asian economic growth. The course will also examine many challenges these countries currently face, including a slowdown in economic growth and productivity, the aggravation of inequality, and popular dissatisfaction with politics.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5074 Populism in Asia 3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5075 U.S. Rel with SE Asia 3 Credits

This course will examine the contemporary political, economic, and security landscape of Southeast Asia, U.S. diplomatic and economic policy toward Southeast Asia, and the region’s status as a locus of economic growth and diplomatic competition within a changing geopolitical system. The course will examine questions such as: What similarities and distinctions characterize Southeast Asian countries’ individual and collective responses to globalization and changing international economic and security dynamics? What cultural and historical factors underpin Southeast Asia’s diversity as a driver and limitation on regional collective action? How have external powers sought to exert influence and institute presence in Southeast Asia, and how have Southeast Asian governments navigated and exploited great power competition? How do diaspora communities inside and outside Southeast Asia affect the region’s global linkages and economic prospects? What has been the trajectory of U.S. policy toward Southeast Asia, and in what ways have policy shifts since World War II shaped U.S. influence and regional perceptions thereof? Why and in what ways does Southeast Asia constitute the great “contested space” in a new era of great power competition, and to what extent do competition and sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea and Mekong Delta constitute U.S. national security interests?

The class schedule will be divided into related units that introduce historical antecedents, analyze the current regional landscape, and deep-dive on discrete political and economic topics. Guest lecturers from the Southeast Asian diplomatic community in Washington and overseas will enrich the curriculum and offer diverse, on-the-ground perspectives on regional developments. After each unit, students will produce and present orally a short policy-relevant essay on a topic of their choosing. As a final written assignment, students will draft and submit a policy recommendation and justification for future engagement for Southeast Asia, a sub-region, or an individual Southeast Asian country.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

ASST 5076 HistoryInChinesePolitics 3 Credits

This graduate seminar focuses on the ways in which Chinese history has played a role in Chinese politics, from the commemoration of figures like Sun Yat-sen to the memory of the Cultural Revolution. We will study the making of official history through monuments and museums, and examine how unofficial history persists in popular culture and grassroots projects. Featuring primary sources and interdisciplinary readings, this seminar will culminate in an independent research paper.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5077 PoliticalEconomyofSouthAsia 3 Credits

The South Asian region has evolved from being one defined by abject poverty, stagnating incomes, and low productivity, to a region that is now seen as having strong growth fundamentals, which if combined with effective policies and technology can be the cornerstone of the mid-21st century world order. This course will be divided into parts. In the first part, we will discuss historical episodes of growth after the South Asian economies became independent. Here will analyze disaggregated country-specific data to understand what factors and policies led or did not lead to growth. This will be followed by discussion and debate on certain pertinent issues such as the role of government policies in alleviating poverty and enhancing livelihoods, the evolving nature of industrialization, health, education, the demographic transition, institutional policies, and reform. In the final part of the course, we will examine the changing degree of integration of these economies with the rest of the world. In particular, we will cover how important these economies have become for global trade, the challenges remaining as well as the changing landscape of trade and industrial policies in these countries.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5080 SocietyTransnat'lIssuesinAsia 3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5081 Sports, Politics, Dev: Asia 3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5082 Japanese Political Economy 3 Credits

This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the economic and political dynamics that have shaped the postwar economic development of Japan and other East Asian economies. We will begin by exploring the historical events that shaped the development of Japan’s political system and its relations with its neighbors. Next, we will examine the role of governmental strategies in driving economic development, such as choice of economic model, industrial policies, trade policies, and regional and global economic integration. In doing so, we will cover the academic debate on the role of the state and bureaucracy in Japanese and East Asian economic development, with a focus on critically analyzing conflicting theoretical and empirical arguments. We will conclude by examining contemporary political economic challenges facing Japan, such as rising inequality, regional tensions, energy and climate change policy, and Japan’s recent economic stagnation.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5083 Pearl River Delta to GBA 3 Credits

China’s Greater Bay Area is a political project to transform the cities of the Pearl River Delta into a megapolis of 86 million people. These cities—including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Macau, and Hong Kong, among others—have a long tradition of cultural, economic, and social connections. This graduate seminar examines the history and politics of the South China region, and includes topics such as diaspora and migration, urbanization and industrialization, and revolution and politics, among others. Readings include both classic and recent studies in anthropology, geography, history, political science, and sociology, paying particular attention to research methods. Students will write an independent research paper on a topic of their own design.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5110 Intl Pol Econ: Asia 3 Credits

This seminar examines the international political economy of Asia. The region is undoubtedly of critical importance: it is home to half the world's population, and rapid economic development has fueled global economic growth. Yet it is also a region experiencing political and social changes that have profound implications for regional and global stability. This seminar analyzes trends in the region by examining the political nature of the most salient economic issues and their implications for policy and private sectors.

Students are not expected to have an advanced proficiency in economics; however, it is highly recommended that students have some background in basic macroeconomic concepts and a certain familiarity with the international monetary and trading system.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5311 History of Korea in NE Asia 3 Credits

The aim of this course is to introduce Korean history to graduate students with little or no exposure to Korea and to challenge commonly held assumptions by those who do. The course will explore the cultural, political, and social impact of Korea’s internationalization from early modern times to the contemporary period. The first part of the course will explore the turbulent interplay between Chosun Korea, dynastic overthrow in China, civil war in Japan, and the threat of Western imperialism. The second part of the course will focus on twentieth century Korea – the colonial experience, division, war, and relations between the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia, and the United States

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5574 Business Politics: East Asia 3 Credits

This course studies the relationship between business and politics in East Asia: how firms and plutocrats influence politics and how politics shape the business environment and behavior in the region. How do corporations and tycoons articulate their agenda in the political arena? Is their impact always negative? What is the role of the state in governing markets and business behavior? How do political, regulatory, and civil contexts limit or encourage various business behavior? We will explore answers to these questions by reading and discussing studies drawn from various disciplines.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5590 For Pol Chall: US-SE Asian Rel 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5700 Marine Sci/Sust Fisheries 3 Credits

This course aims to provide students with a hands-on understanding of coastal fisheries as ecological, economic, and cultural systems. Each student will choose an individual fish species and, by using field interviews, value-chain analysis, and the scientific literature, track how fish are captured, marketed, and consumed. Along the way, they will learn about coastal fisheries sustainability, constraints on artisanal fisheries production, equity along the value chain, and how to set priorities for effective intervention. Segments of the course will involve reef snorkeling and optional scuba.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5705 SocialProtectionPolicy:AsiaPac 3 Credits

In the past decade, governments have been building social protection systems to address poverty and deal with economic and natural shocks. This course will review the overall logic of social protection systems and dive into their design’s technical aspects. Class analytics and discussions will address topics such as social registries, grievance mechanisms, economic empowerment programs, technology, financing, and politics. The class will also conduct field visits in Indonesia to see firsthand how what sounds good in theory does not always work well in practice. Guest lectures by social protection researchers and practitioners from the government, experts from across the globe, the World Bank, and UNICEF will give students a 360-degree view of how social policy gets made and assessed.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5708 Livable Cities 3 Credits

Asia’s dynamic metropolis must reconcile the colonial legacies of the 19th and 20th centuries with the technical and planning challenges of the 21st and 22nd. This course walks students through the core principles of urban planning in Asia, covering urban policy, urban planning, transport economics, service provision, and urban environmental management.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5710 Crit.Minerals/ResourcesinAPAC 3 Credits

Virtually no issue causes more controversy today than mining and critical minerals. This course takes a 360o look at the economic, technological, political, social, and environmental issues surrounding mining and critical minerals development in Asia. Students will explore alternative approaches to natural resource diplomacy, mine development policy, industrial policies, new thinking on environment and social governance, long-term impact management, and the global geopolitics of mining. Students will learn to use ArcGIS and ChatGPT for spatial analysis. The course also includes site visits to mines and processing centers in Indonesia.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5711 Asia-Pac Fin, Trade Invest 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5712 Security in the Asia Pacific 3 Credits

This course examines the evolving landscape of security policy in the Asia-Pacific, focusing on traditional and non-traditional threats in a region marked by strategic rivalries and shifting alliances. Students will analyze the security strategies of key actors, including the United States, China, Japan, India, and ASEAN, through case studies and policy simulations. The course explores maritime security, nuclear deterrence, cyber threats, and the role of regional institutions in conflict prevention. Emphasis is placed on understanding the historical, political, and economic drivers of security dynamics in the Indo-Pacific framework. Through critical readings and interactive discussions, students will gain the analytical tools to assess and craft policy responses to complex regional security challenges.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5715 LocalDevEvidBasedPolicyMaking 3 Credits

TBD

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5716 Community Development 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5717 Conflict,Peace-bldg,Recovery 3 Credits

TBA

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5718 PeopleandPlaceinNorthJakarta 3 Credits

This graduate-level practicum explores the practice of urban planning through applied problem-solving in Jakarta, Indonesia. This 3-credit course is taught in a 5-week format on-site in Jakarta. Students engage in urban analysis, interdisciplinary synthesis, and formulation of a comprehensive urban development strategy. Coursework is hands-on, participatory, and emphasizes methods of documentation, analysis, and effective communication associated with urban planning practice. Students will make final presentations to representatives of the Special Capital Region of Jakarta.

The North Jakarta Project encompasses diverse neighborhoods along Jakarta’s waterfront that are grappling with intersecting challenges of land subsidence, sea level rise, new infrastructure investments, informal land tenure, and unique cultural resources, among many other urban pressures. Students will be working in close collaboration with government representatives in the articulation of a place-based urban development strategy.

This class will be taught and based at SFS Asia-Pacific in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5719 UrbanHydrologyWaterGovernance 3 Credits

Cities around the world face increasingly complex water challenges driven by rapid urbanization, climate change, land subsidence, and intensifying extreme weather. Flooding, groundwater depletion, and coastal vulnerability are reshaping how urban systems manage water resources and infrastructure. This four-week intensive course explores the hydrological, environmental, and governance dynamics shaping urban water systems globally, with particular attention to rapidly growing coastal and deltaic cities. The course integrates perspectives from hydrology, environmental monitoring, economics, water governance, and climate adaptation to examine how cities understand and manage water risks. While the course draws on comparative examples from cities across Southeast Asia and around the world, Jakarta will serve as the primary case study context. The combination of extreme rainfall, land use change, land subsidence, coastal flooding, and complex governance structures make Jakarta and important lens for examining challenges confronting many coastal megacities. Through lectures, guest speakers, field-based activities, and a collaborative research project, the course connects scientific understanding, policy frameworks, and practical solutions for urban water management.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5720 UsingEvidMakeSmartLaborPolicy 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5721 IndonesiaNow:ReadingaCompPrsnt 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5722 GIS:ToolsAppforPublicPolicy 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5723 Sci Comm Data Visualization 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5724 Data Analytics for PovertySP 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5725 Balancing CD in Marine Spaces 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5750 Directed Policy Lab Research 3 Credits

Georgetown Asia Pacific also offers a 3-credit Directed Policy Lab Research course, which includes directed readings and field research under the guidance of our senior faculty. This is a unique chance to get hands-on mentoring and on-site support for independent studies such as capstones, dissertations, or joining an ongoing research program. Admission depends on the approval of the proposed supervisor and your home faculty. Directed reading and fieldwork can, in principle, be done anywhere in the Asia Pacific region.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5888 AnalyzingAsianPoliticalLeaders 3 Credits

This is a foundational course covering essential aspects of the psychology of world leaders, with a primary focus on Asian political leaders. Taught through a combination of lectures and class discussion, the course concentrates on the person of the leader and uses historical and current case studies of both famous and infamous leaders. Core psychological topics include family and childhood background, key personality features including charisma and paranoia, the leader’s health, patterns of behavior in and out of office, cognitive style, political vision, political acumen, and relationships with intimates and with the inner circle. The course surveys important elements of leaders’ interplay with their cultural, social, and political context, including large-group dynamics with followers, how world leaders relate to each other, and the shifting myths, fantasies, and narratives that develop around these seemingly larger-than-life personalities. The course touches on the utility, common pitfalls, and ethics of developing remote leader assessments for national security and private sector uses. Through a combination of written assignments and class presentations students will have opportunities to practice how political leadership profiles are produced and briefed to senior customers in professional intelligence contexts. The evolving role of technology in leadership and politics worldwide will be addressed throughout the course.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 5925 Asian Studies Internship 0.25-3 Credits

No region of the world may be more significant to international stability and economic growth in the 21st-century as Asia. Such contemporary focus complements the longevity of the cultures and civilizations of greater Asia. From antiquity to the contemporary era of our interdependent, digital world, the world’s largest continent attracts the attention of a variety of individuals from all sectors of life. Such history and significance leads to many observations and even more questions. Aspiring Asia regional specialists strive to wrestle with these questions through the lenses of various methodological and disciplinary approaches to begin understanding the realities that have influenced the past, present, and future.

These same students of Asia come to Georgetown University’s Asian Studies Program to delve deeper in studying these scholarly inquiries and debates. Upon graduation, they are expected to utilize what they have learned thus far and apply their knowledge and skills of Asia to their professional lives. To ensure of their effectiveness, students in this course will be introduced to the various skills necessary for their success as Asia specialists. They will be introduced to the study of Asia through various methodological approaches, and they will complete a final project related to their internship and professional career reflecting individual scholarship on two topics chosen in consultation with the instructor.

This course is open to domestic and international students, including those who are completing their second, third, or subsequent Curricular Practical Training authorization.

Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 5995 AnalyzingAsianPoliticalLeaders 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 6001 US-China Tech Competition 3 Credits

This course will examine the evolution and nature of the evolving advanced technology competition between the U.S. and China. It will explore China’s past and current technology-related economic policies and how they have evolved and currently operate. It will examine a select number of key advanced industries/technologies (such as AI, robotics, biotech, and 5G equipment) where U.S.-China competition is playing out and the implications for America of success or failure. Finally, it will examine U.S. industrial and technology policy related to competitiveness over the past half century, the nature of the current debate and policies, and what the United States should do to assure that it does not fall behind China on key advanced industries.

The professor is Robert Atkinson, Ph.D., President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 6200 U.S.-Japan-China Relations 3 Credits

This MA-level graduate seminar will explore the post-1945 evolution and rapidly evolving contemporary reality of relations among the United States, Japan, and China. During the first half of the semester, we will explore the postwar history of trilateral relations and discuss competing explanations for Cold War-era competition and cooperation. During the second half of the semester, we will explore and debate U.S., Japanese, and Chinese approaches to 21st-century policy challenges regularly making global headlines, from security flashpoints (e.g., the Taiwan Strait, Korean Peninsula; maritime territorial disputes) and accelerating military competition to the future of free trade, economic “decoupling,” and regional order. Course readings will be drawn primarily from diplomatic history, international relations, and contemporary analyses of real-world events.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 6313 Life and Legacy of Mao Zedong 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 6314 Manchuria and Modern East Asia 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 6680 Theory/Policy in Asia 3 Credits

The focus of this class is on the dynamics of contemporary international relations in Asia. The course begins with three sessions to set the theoretical, historical, and U.S. policy contexts. Subsequent sessions then test these theories, historical lessons, and policy debates against specific case studies or “hot spots” in the region. These case studies include the transformation of Japan; the rise of China; the nuclear stand-off on the Korean peninsula; Southeast Asia; India-Pakistan; the emerging institutional architecture of Asia; and transnational security threats.

This is the required gateway course for the Masters Degree in Asian Studies and enrollment will be limited to students in this program only.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7001 Chinese Foreign Policy 3 Credits

This graduate level course will examine the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It will identify the major trends in the PRC’s foreign relations during the past sixty years. The course is divided into four sections. The first section explores issues of interest and identity in order to understand how geography, demography, history, and culture continue to shape China’s foreign policy. What drives PRC foreign policy? Who runs it? How does the process of foreign policy making function and what are the key bureaucratic actors? The second section analyzes the PRC’s security challenges and the strategies adopted to address them in China’s immediate neighborhood, the wider Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Special attention is given to PRC policy toward the United States. The third part considers issues of territorial integrity and problems of ‘stateness’ including Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Macao. The fourth part scrutinizes the different instruments of power wielded by the PRC: hard (i.e. economic and military) and soft (i.e. ideas and culture).

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7005 Chinese Politics in Comp Persp 3 Credits

This graduate seminar situates the study of domestic Chinese politics within the larger field of comparative politics. Throughout the course, students will work on developing answers to the following questions: What insights drawn from comparative politics might be used to help explain the Chinese case? How might the study of Chinese politics enrich the major theoretical and empirical debates in comparative politics? Key themes to be explored include: political parties, elite politics, bureaucratic politics, corruption, civil society, public security, media politics, environmental politics, ethnic politics, and the political economy of development.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7006 EvolutionUS-ChinaEconRelations 3 Credits

The U.S. and China are the world’s two largest economies and have had a complex economic relationship based on mutual dependence and competition. This graduate course aims to provide students with an understanding of core issues underlying this consequential and dynamic relationship. It will focus on changes in the Chinese economy that have affected bilateral trade, investment, and competitive conditions in the past four decades, while also addressing how U.S. policy, the modern trade war, and COVID have affected the economic relationship. After providing a brief history of the U.S.-China economic relationship, the course will discuss China’s WTO accession and the special role the U.S. has played in that process. The course will also examine China’s industrialization policies and structural transformations (e.g., state-owned enterprise reform, private sector development, middle class emergence) which have helped shape its economy into one of the fastest growing producer and consumer markets. The course will analyze interdependencies associated with the U.S.-China economic relationship, such as manufacturing offshoring, integration along global supply chains, and the special role U.S. and other foreign firms have played in various sectors of the Chinese economy. Finally, the course will investigate areas of conflict, including issues associated with innovation, intellectual property right (IPR) protection, forced technology transfers, market access, and currency/financial markets. It will conclude with an analysis of current trade war and COVID-19 related conditions, focusing on their developments, implications, and potential solutions.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7008 Migr/Ctzen:Transnat'lNE/SEAsia 3 Credits

This graduate seminar investigates how surging transnational migration across East Asia—spanning both Northeast and Southeast regions—challenges traditional concepts of citizenship. The course explores the conceptualization of personhood and citizenship from the local religious-philosophical perspective in each East Asian society. It also examines the strategies of transnational and domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as they advocate for policy reforms regarding foreign worker rights and citizenship laws within East Asian societies characterized by strong central governments. Drawing on literature from political philosophy, international law, international relations, comparative politics, sociology, and anthropology, this course equips students with robust theoretical frameworks to analyze contemporary intellectual and policy debates surrounding migration and citizenship in the region. Faculty Biography: Dr. Apichai Shipper specializes in the Foreign Policy of East Asia and the Pacific, International Migration, and Civil Society. His intellectual interests concern the impact of international migration on democratic institutions.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7011 Politics Societies:SE Asia 3 Credits

This course introduces students to politics, economics, and societies of Southeast Asia, namely Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. How do we understand the political economic system of a culturally diverse Southeast Asia? What does democracy means to the people who live in this multi-ethnic region? Why are vote-buying, political assassinations, corruption, coups, and protests so prominent in these societies? What roles do women, workers, and overseas Chinese play in Southeast Asian society? During the early 1990s, certain countries in the region were models of economic growth for other developing countries in the world. By the end of the 1990s, those same countries experienced a financial crisis that affected the rest of the world economy. What happened? These are some key issues that will be examined in the course.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7016 Intl Relations of SE Asia 3 Credits

This course introduces students to international relations and foreign policy of Southeast Asia from a local perspective. It traces the regional economic-security order during the pre-modern period, the colonial period, the post-independence period, and the post-Asian Financial Crisis period. It first explores the historical influence of China and India (as well as Persia) during the pre-modern period and of Western colonizers during the colonial period. It then reviews the roles and impact of the U.S., Japan, and China on the recent transformation of security and economic frameworks in Southeast Asia. Following the historical overview, it will examine regional organizations, including the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and ASEAN-centered organizations such as ASEAN Plus Three (APT), and ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). The course ends with an exploration of non-traditional security (or human security) concerns such as transnational organized crime, undocumented international labor flows, trafficking in persons, food security, and catastrophic natural disasters.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7018 Transnat'l Pol History: Asia 3 Credits

Regarding the 21st century, many debate whether it will be come an "Asian Century" in which major countries in Asia will rise to surpass the centrality of the U.S and Europe in a new global order. However, as this seminar aims to remind students, Asia's importance in a deeply interconnected world of trade and movement is hardly a recent development. This seminar surveys the transnational politics of Asia and places its significance in historical perspective. Thematically, it focuses on migrants and mobility, organized crime, cross-border trades, and environmental problems, with emphasis on Southeast Asia. In addition to learning to map these flows of people and goods across and beyond Asia today, students will develop a critical vocabulary for engaging with influential debates on globalization and world politics, informed by the region's legacies of Chinese migration, colonialism, and state formation since the 19th century.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7019 Transnat'lAsiafromtheMargins 3 Credits

This seminar examines dynamics of state-building, nationalism and political economy across Asia from a transnational perspective that centers attention on the histories and politics of marginalized minorities. The weekly readings are designed to encourage students to rethink conventional understandings of the role of the state, society, and markets from the vantage point of migrants and foreigners, economic outsiders, and other groups discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, caste, language and indigeneity. This is a reading-intensive course and recommended for students with, or interested in developing, reading comprehension in at least one Asian language.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7020 Fund Dynamics:US-China Relatio 3 Credits

The U.S.-China relationship is the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world, bar none. It is central to global peace and security as well to global economic development and prosperity. It is also one of the most complex bilateral dynamics in the world, possessing elements of cooperation and competition on both security and economic issues, and the bilateral agenda is constantly evolving. This course examines the fundamental dynamics at the core of the U.S.-China relationship to provide students with an enduring framework for assessing the relationship as it changes and evolves. This course examines the historical evolution of bilateral ties as well as changes in the bilateral agenda, with a particular emphasis on the importance of the domestic politics in both countries as a driver. The course examines both the United States and the Chinese perspectives to generate an understanding of the core dynamics at the heart of U.S.-China relations.

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7030 ResSem:WillChinaDominateAsia? 3 Credits

This course is a deep-dive into the most consequential issue facing Asia: Will China dominate. This course requires students to have a solid foundation in Asian geopolitics and Chinese foreign policy because it is a seminar focused on student research, writing and discussion/debate. The course will look at all the relevant issues and debates related what the drivers and constraints on Chinese influence in Asia: economics, military affairs and political/diplomatic influence. The course will examine the regional responses to China in order to understand the dynamics unfolding in Asia. The seminar will require at least one research paper on one aspect of this issue.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7040 Colonial Legacies in SE Asia 3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7050 HowChinaThinksAboutWarPeace 3 Credits

This course is an intensive examination of Chinese thinking about war and peace from the Warring States period (403-221 BC) to 21st Century China. Many scholars, analysts and observers assume that there are key strategic continuities in Chinese approaches to war and peace that cut across time and historical context. This course has two goals. The first is to provide an introductory understanding of key continuities and discontinuities in Chinese strategic thinking across millennia. The second is to provide some conceptual tools to help put Chinese strategic thought into comparative perspective.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 7052 China:FromRevolutiontoReform 3 Credits

This graduate seminar examines the history of the People’s Republic of China from its founding in 1949. It focuses on the Mao era (1949-1976) and the era of reform and opening-up. Students will read recent books in PRC history, discuss their scholarly context and methodology, and design and write an independent research paper. The seminar begins with frameworks, including the origins of revolution and the urban-rural divide. Students will also study political campaigns from the 1950s to the 1970s. The course will encompass themes such as culture, health, and the economy, among others. The latter part of the syllabus covers the transformations of the 1980s and after, including the reform era’s experiments and its attendant challenges. Background in Chinese history and Chinese language is helpful but not required; additional reading will be suggested to provide context. This course is cross-listed with Asian Studies and History, and open to undergraduates with instructor permission.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 7630 Great Power Comp in South Asia 3 Credits

How India, the PRC, and U.S. compete for influence, resources, and military access India has been the dominant power in South Asia for centuries. Today, the PRC is using the Belt and Road Initiative as well as its considerable naval resources to seek influence and exert pressure on South Asian countries. The United States is actively working with India, Japan, and Australia to provide an alternative to PRC debt and military influence. This course will examine the evolution of this Great Power competition and the policy alternatives available to the United States as it navigates this dynamic security and economic environment in the most populous region in the world. The instructor is currently a Senior State Department Fellow at the SFS Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. A career senior foreign service officer, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs from 2021-25 and U.S. Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic from 2018 to 2021.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

ASST 7790 Int'l Rel Diplo of East Asia 3 Credits

This is a graduate–level reading and writing seminar. Substantively, we will make you conversant with some of the core debates and policy issues in the field, including regional security and stability, trade architecture, U.S. alliances, national identity, unresolved historical disputes, China’s rise, Japan’s future, Korean unification, and crisis diplomacy. Students will do short writing assignments throughout the semester as building blocks for one article-length paper of publishable quality. Victor Cha is a Professor of Government and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown, where he has been teaching for 21 years. He previously worked at the White House as an advisor on Asia and won two commendations for his public service. He has also won the Georgetown Dean’s Teaching Award. In addition to writing many books, he has a cameo appearance in a movie (as himself) and has appeared as a featured guest on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. A native of New York, he is a Giants, Yankees, and Knicks fan.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Mutual exclusion: ASST 750, ASST 7900, GOVT 6401, GOVT 641

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to students with a major in Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies or Asian Studies.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7900 Thesis Sem: Asian Studies 3 Credits

This is a research seminar designed for Asian Studies graduate students. This course will prepare you to write good article-length research papers and theses. We will spend alternate weeks going over basic social science methodology including how to formulate a good research question; how to understand causality; how to deal with alternative explanations; how to test an argument; and how to use empirical evidence.

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7949 Tutorial: Asian Studies 0-3 Credits

Level: Graduate

Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 7950 Internship 0.25-3 Credits

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: Pass/Fail Default

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 9991 Continuous Registration

Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor

Grading: No Grade

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 9992 Continuous Registration

Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor

Grading: No Grade

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 9993 Continuous Registration

Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Grading: No Grade

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

ASST 9999 Thesis Research

Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor, Undergraduate

Grading: No Grade

Course registration restrictions:

Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.

2026-2027 Edition

Asian Studies (ASST)

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