The four papers in this panel examine different nation-building strategies in Greater China during and after the Chinese Civil War. Covell Meyskens discusses the search for wealth and hydropower in the Republican and People's Republic eras. Focusing on the Three Gorges Dam, Meyskens illustrates how the world's largest hydropower corporations in China are reshaping riverine environments and infrastructure around the globe. Mark Frank offers insights into agrarian fundamentalist visions for China's future and debates over the balance between agriculture and industry during the Republican era. Frank suggests that China's agrarian roots, rooted in Confucian thought and promoted by imperial states, were posed at the critical juncture of the Nationalist and Communist revolutions in the 1940s. Linh Vu examines how the cultivation of a moral and collectivist citizenship was a critical policy in both the People's Republic and the Republic of China. Vu argues that although their paths diverged, both states, driven by the need to legitimize their existence and prepare for future wars, undertook to shape their populations. Finally, Coleman Mahler presents a comparative study of the "information orders" of the developmental states of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China from the early 1950s to the 1970s. Using the production of agricultural knowledge as a case study, Mahler examines the ways in which both states sought to create accurate sources of information to guide their state-directed economic planning.

Together we interrogate how the hydroelectric engine of Chinese development, the agrarian roots of Chinese society, the moral fiber of the Chinese nation, and the order of communication and knowledge have shaped and transformed competing political realms on both sides of the Strait in the last century. By offering original takes on the interwoven and complex relationship between the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China, we seek to shed new light on the political dynamics of contemporary East Asia.