I would highly recommend anyone who is interested at all in learning about China or Chinese politics to take Professor Mcnamee's class. He was very understanding of circumstances that arise and we only had biweekly quizzes (they were open notes), a midterm, and a final. This course was asynchronous so we did not have live lectures, they were all pre-recorded but I would highly recommend to stop by Professor Mcnamee's office hours they are so much fun and he is such an interesting person. Definitely recommend this professor to anyone just make sure to do the readings. Also, we had a slack group for this course which is part of participation but you are not mandated to post all the time but occasionally. For example, if you come across an article about the topics we are talking about or anything related to China you would post it there. Overall I would take his class again if he teaches again next year because his teaching style is amazing and he makes the content understandable if you are confused about anything.

Lachlan is a very good professor and generous grader many people got 100s on the midterm

I was not sure about taking this class because when I took it, it was the professor's first quarter teaching at UCLA. However, this class was AMAZING. I highly recommend Professor McNamee and any class he might teach at UCLA. The readings in the class were engaging and not too overwhelming (and it is okay if you miss some). The lectures were especially great - really really well organized, interesting, informative lectures. Each week we covered a different topic about China in fairly impressive detail, but in a way where everything could be understood and retained pretty easily. I know this statement may be controversial, but I think this may be the best China class at UCLA. Professor McNamee was also very kind and responsive to student concerns. I was worried I wouldn't be able to finish my final within the allotted window (it was quite long), and so I told him why I was concerned. Not only did he shorten the final for the entire class, but he offered me extra time even on the shortened version if I needed it. This class is great all around! Take it!

Good class. McNamee is an excellent lecturer and is very clear.
The content was very interesting however I'd argue that the reading load was somewhat heavy -- and you really had to read most of them (if not all of them) to get a good participation grade in section and succeed on the midterm and final.

The midterm (25% of grade) was pretty easy. Essentially a take-home essay that consisted of short-answer questions.

The final was surprisingly brutal. It was two 1000-2000 word essays assigned over a 5 day time period during finals week (ie. roughly 12-15 pages in 5 days... while you're taking other finals). McNamee said that this assignment should only take 1 day, and I'm not exactly sure how that's possible. I believe many people complained and got extensions, so hopefully this final is changed in the future, or at the very least students are given more time to do it.

However, even with this final, this class was among the most interesting Pol Sci courses I've taken at UCLA. I'd recommend it to anyone.