China Seminar | 14 March 1991

China in Light of Recent Development in the USSR and Eastern Europe

Frank Tang

Frank Tang, visiting professor in the Dept. of American Studies at the University of Hawai‘i, majored in international relations at the U. of Southern California. After graduating as an honor student he went to China in 1948 to do research in Chinese political science and international relations at Yenching University in Beijing. He witnessed the downfall of the Nationalist government and the setting up of the People’s Republic in 1949 and later decided to make his life work in China, where he resided over 40 years, experiencing all the major ups and downs of the P.R.C. as a Chinese professor.

Frank Tang founded the American Studies Program at the Beijing Foreign Studies University and was its director until he resigned in the summer of 1989 in protest over the Tiananmen massacre. After spending a semester teaching in the American Studies Department in Spring of 1990, Professor Tang returned to China for a few months and is now back as a visiting professor for the Spring 1991 semester.

Recent developments in the USSR and Eastern Europe have been closely monitored by Chinese authorities and intellectuals alike, resulting in certain changes in thinking and policy. This talk discusses some problems and issues: economic and political reforms, ethnic relations, religious freedom, social security and benefits.