{"id":17871,"date":"2019-02-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2019\/02\/12\/the-tension-between-north-and-south-in-chinas-history\/"},"modified":"2021-02-15T14:41:08","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T06:41:08","slug":"the-tension-between-north-and-south-in-chinas-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2019\/02\/12\/the-tension-between-north-and-south-in-chinas-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tension between North and South in China’s History"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Photo: ‘Sea of Ships’ by Filbert Kuong from SRN\u2019s SG Photobank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An excerpt of a speech discussing China\u2019s north and south that was given at the Institute of Policy Studies\u2019 Singapore Perspectives 2019 Conference by University Professor Wang Gungwu from the NUS Department of History was recently featured in The Straits Times.<\/p>\n

Prof Wang first outlines the historical tension between China\u2019s northern political and military power and its southern entrepreneurial and technical expertise. This lasted until the end of the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century, with the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century witnessing two revolutions that transformed the nature and structure of Chinese society. The opening of China, in particular, gave the southern Chinese an opportunity to rise above their ranks and become indispensable to the country\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

Today, not only is China\u2019s south more open than ever before, but Beijing\u2019s leaders have also discovered new ways to move forward while remaining strictly in control. This has led to the \u2018One Belt, One Road\u2019 initiative, which seeks to create more opportunities for future economic growth. However, for the first time in history, the south is inhibiting China\u2019s pursuit of this initiative. Firstly, the dynamism in globalization depends on entrepreneurs and inventive industrialists who are more active and better appreciated in southern China than northern China. Secondly, the countries to China\u2019s south are now sovereign states in an overarching international system, and have organized themselves to protect the region. Lastly, the South China Sea has become a source of tension between China and the USA. Thus, there are more countries involved, including US allies like Japan and Australia.<\/p>\n

Prof Wang stresses that merely holding regular meetings between ASEAN and its partner states may not be enough if either China or the USA insists on ASEAN support. At the same time, China\u2019s entrepreneurial classes have to ensure that their northern leaders understand the demands of coastal and maritime outreach, as well as the different economies across ASEAN\u2019s land borders.<\/p>\n

Read the full excerpt here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excerpt of a speech discussing China\u2019s north and south that was given at the Institute of Policy Studies\u2019 Singapore Perspectives 2019 Conference by University Professor Wang Gungwu from the NUS Department of History was recently featured in The Straits Times. Prof Wang first outlines the historical tension between China\u2019s northern political and military power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":247,"featured_media":17872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4529],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17871"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28426,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17871\/revisions\/28426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}