I took this class in winter 2019. I was looking for an opportunity to learn about international relations of China. And this class gave me exactly what I wanted.

Throughout this course, you can learn about China's diplomatic stances towards its neighboring states, Africa, Europe, and the US. Some of them are brief information from which you can get generic ideas how China approaches other regions, and some others will require you more insights into their relations.

Lectures are well-organized. Like mathematics, you will learn from the basic to more difficult topics. You will also need to participate in class discussions. I know it is kinda difficult to talk how you think about certain topics in front of your classmates. But you don't have to give a presentation or something difficult. Professor Lee asks some questions, and you just need to answer the questions or give some your thoughts. As time goes by, you will feel like it becomes easier to engage in the class since everyone participates in. You will have plenty of opportunities to engage in class discussions. Professor knows how to carry out her lectures and will balance students' participation so that everyone can have fair chances. (btw, she will remember your name once you engage in class discussions. Literally she memorized almost 150 students' names by mid-term)

There were reading assignments. But, they were not heavy stuff as long as you do your weekly reading. The reading materials were super clear. If you have any question or issue with the reading assignments, you can ask professor. She will give you helpful advices.

Also, there would be mid-term and final exams. Before covid, my mid-term and final exams were in class essay format. (for the other class I took during the covid pandemic in 2020, both exams were take-home essays)
The exams were straightforward, and if you study the course materials and things professor discussed in class, you can write a decent essay.

If you are poli-sci major with IR concentration, I strongly recommend this class. I don't think I need to explain how important Asia and China are in IR. If you take this class, you'll definitely learn enough about China and its relations with other states. This class is not an easy A I'd say, but it is a reasonable class. Attend lectures, participate in class discussions, and study what you learned from the lectures, then you will see a good grade on your transcript.

Perhaps the only difficult part of this course was the mandatory attendance, especially because lectures were not recorded. However, because of security reasons, the inability to record lectures was perfectly understandable. In fact, going to lecture every time and paying close attention was actually super helpful in gathering info for the midterm and final. Both the midterm and final were 5-6 page take-home essays that posed questions about major themes in the class.

Overall, Professor Lee and this course was amazing! Her discussion-style lectures felt really engaging, and we were able to learn a wide range of different opinions from other students. I believe that the assigned readings (there is no textbook) did a fantastic and thorough job of explaining the materials to us. Through her lectures and communication with the class, I can tell that Professor Lee truly cares about her students and is passionate about teaching us. Honestly, my experience with this class has led me to walk away with a deeper interest in Chinese politics.

The professor is very knowledgeable and engaging during lecture. Her slides have lots of info, but it does not get posted. Writing down every word can get difficult at times, but if you are attentive to the actual lecture it is easy to understand. The midterm and final are in-class essays which you will get two prompt choices for and have time to prepare them. On the day of, she will pick one, so you need to have both ready. To do good on these, you should keep up with the reading, since you need to cite the authors as evidence. She does not specify how many authors you need to have cited, but the more, the better. You should also integrate real-world examples from her lectures to support the theories of the authors. I don’t believe she gives perfect scores on the exams, but it balances out with the quizzes. There are quizzes after each lecture based on the readings which make up the majority of your grade. These are easy points, so make sure you don’t miss any. I wish she was more clear about her grading because I felt that it was inconsistent on the exams. She will not round at all, keep that in mind. I would recommend joining her office hours prepared with some ideas on what to discuss for the exam so she can guide you, as she can be a bit harsh at times. The class is interesting, especially if you like IR already.

International Relations of East and Southeast Asia.
The class material was super interesting, the professor not so much. I definitely learned a ton about East Asian international relations because the readings she assigned were engaging and super informative. She structured the class well so that each week we focused on one particular issue. But she wasn't a very engaging lecturer. Especially when the first part of the class was on Zoom, it was basically run as a discussion section with 120 students. Her analyses and insights in lecture on the readings and subjects were pretty surface-level. But the class was easy. Midterm and final were each 4 page essays. When she releases the prompt you have like a day or two to work on it. Quizzes were super easy if you did the readings. Typically there were 2 or 3 readings per lecture and each reading probably averaged out to be like 20 pages.

Take this if the subject interests you and you're looking for a fairly easy class but be ready to learn mostly from the readings.