S01: Introduction

Misinformation and China

January 5, 2026

An Enigmatic Image

Justice Mission

Justice Mission

  • Justice Mission 2025: large-scale military exercise conducted by the People’s Republic of China around Taiwan from 29 to 30 December 2025
  • Eighth major military drill held around Taiwan since the beginning of the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis in August 2022.

Key questions

  • What do we talk about “misinformation”?
  • Why study history? Why study China?
  • How do we study misinformation?

Writing Exercise (5 mins)

  • Describe a time when you believed in something that later turned out to be false, inaccurate, or misleading information.
  • What happened? What was its effect on you and your community?
  • What changed your mind?

Self-introduction

  • Name
  • Gender pronouns
  • Major (if known)
  • One thing you’d like to learn more about in this class
  • A card from your peers

My research

Archives on sale

Lexicon of Lies

  • What do we talk about when we talk about misinformation?
  • Do we all just believe what we want to believe?
  • How can fake news influence people? Is it dangerous, or just good fun?
  • Is fake news a modern problem or has it always existed?
  • Would you believe a story about one of your heroes as quickly as a story about someone you don’t like?
  • How much of the blame for misinformation is with the people who produce it, the people who believe it, or the people who pass it on?

Another View of China: Root of Madness (1967)

Discuss: Root of Madness (1967)

  • What is China? Who are the Chinese?
  • Who / What is missing from this vision of China?
  • Why was the documentary made? Who were the audiences?
  • What changed? What didn’t change?

China: Why We Fight (1944)

Discuss: Root of Madness (1967)

  • What is China? Who are the Chinese?
  • Who / What is missing from this vision of China?
  • Why was the documentary made? Who were the audiences?
  • What changed? What didn’t change?

Everything is history…

When change is the only constant

  • Borders
  • Language
  • Culture
  • Identity
  • Concepts
  • and more

What is Real: Struggle for the Global Order

Graham T. Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017).

Kevin Rudd, The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China, 2022.

Tingyang Zhao, All under Heaven: The Tianxia System for a Possible World Order, Great Transformations 3 (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2021).