This postgraduate seminar provides a comprehensive examination of the rise of China from a social science perspective. Focusing on the key historical turning points in China’s post socialist development, this seminar studies the complex processes through which China interacted with the global neoliberal project of the late twentieth century. The seminar reveals the centrality of the communist party-state in propelling China onto the world scene, and how it has successfully responded to eh developmental challenges of technological upgrading, environmental degradation, inter-state rivalry, and maintaining its power.