Restless Empire

Product Description

Over the past 250 years of momentous change & dramatic upheaval, China has proved itself to be a Restless Empire. Tracing China's course from the eighteenth-century Qing Dynasty to today's People's Republic, Restless Empire shows how the country's worldview has evolved. It explains how Chinese attitudes have been determined by both receptiveness & resistance to outside influence & presents the preoccupations that have set its foreign-relations agenda. Within two decades China is likely to depose the United States as the world's largest economy. By then the country expects to have eradicated poverty among its population of more than one & a half billion, & established itself as the world's technological powerhouse. Meanwhile, some
- especially its neighbours
- are afraid that China will strengthen its military might in order to bend others to its will. A new form of Chinese nationalism is rising. Many Chinese are angry about perceived past injustices & fear a loss of identity to commercial forces & foreign influences. So, will China's attraction to world society dwindle, or will China continue to engage? Will it attempt to recreate a Sino-centric international order in Eastern Asia, or pursue a more harmonious diplomatic route? & can it overcome its lack of democracy & transparency, or are these characteristics hard-wired into the Chinese system? Whatever the case, we ignore China's international history at our peril. Restless Empire is a magisterial & indispensible history of the most important state in world affairs today.