The New Chinese Empire

Author : Ross Terrill
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2009-03-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9780786740352

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The New Chinese Empire by Ross Terrill Pdf

Some observers expect China to become an economic superpower. Others expect it to fragment into pieces. Is China nationalistic and on the march, or is it a stumbling Communist dinosaur? Is it already a billion-citizen member of the global village? Is it, as the Clinton administration claimed, a "strategic partner" of the U.S.? Ross Terrill addresses the question upon which all these others depend: Is the People's Republic of China, whose polity is a hybrid of Chinese tradition and Western Marxism, willing to become a modern nation or does it insist on remaining an empire? Since the collapse of three thousand years of Confucian monarchy in 1911, China has neither established a successful political system nor adjusted to being a nation state. Today it stands as the most contradictory of major powers, hovering between an unsustainable tradition and a yet-to-be-born political form that would support its new society and economy. Hanging in the balance are the prospect for freedom within China (for both Chinese and non-Chinese citizens of the People's Republic), the future of America's relations with China, and the security of China's neighbors. Drawing upon Terrill's long experience studying China as well as upon new research, this enlightening and rigorous book will be a must-read for everyone who has a stake in the future of the global world order.

Author : Ross Terrill
Publisher : UNSW Press
Page : 398 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0868407585

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The New Chinese Empire by Ross Terrill Pdf

This title combines political science and history, dealing equally with the People's Republic of China and China's imperial story. It weaves in the author's experiences within China, uses a diversity of Chinese language sources, and compares the Chinese empire and other ancient and modern empires. Author formerly from Uni of Melbourne.

Author : William Speer
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 782 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 1877
Category : China
ISBN : HARVARD:HY4JGK

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The Oldest and the Newest Empire by William Speer Pdf

Author : Yuanchong Wang
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2018-12-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781501730511

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Remaking the Chinese Empire by Yuanchong Wang Pdf

Remaking the Chinese Empire examines China’s development from an empire into a modern state through the lens of Sino-Korean political relations during the Qing period. Incorporating Korea into the historical narrative of the Chinese empire, it demonstrates that the Manchu regime used its relations with Chosŏn Korea to establish, legitimize, and consolidate its identity as the civilized center of the world, as a cosmopolitan empire, and as a modern sovereign state. For the Manchu regime and for the Chosŏn Dynasty, the relationship was one of mutual dependence, central to building and maintaining political legitimacy. Yuanchong Wang illuminates how this relationship served as the very model for China’s foreign relations. Ultimately, this precipitated contests, conflicts, and compromises among empires and states in East Asia, Inner Asia, and Southeast Asia – in particular, in the nineteenth century when international law reached the Chinese world. By adopting a long-term and cross-border perspective on high politics at the empire’s core and periphery, Wang revises our understanding of the rise and transformation of the last imperial dynasty of China. His work reveals new insights on the clashes between China’s foreign relations system and its Western counterpart, imperialism and colonialism in the Chinese world, and the formation of modern sovereign states in East Asia. Most significantly, Remaking the Chinese Empire breaks free of the established, national history-oriented paradigm, establishing a new paradigm through which to observe and analyze the Korean impact on the Qing Dynasty.

Author : Chun-shu Chang
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 516 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : China
ISBN : 0472115332

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The Rise of the Chinese Empire: Nation, state, & imperialism in early China, ca. 1600 B.C.-A.D. 8 by Chun-shu Chang Pdf

The second and first centuries B.C. were a critical period in Chinese history—they saw the birth and development of the new Chinese empire and its earliest expansion and acquisition of frontier territories. But for almost two thousand years, because of gaps in the available records, this essential chapter in the history was missing. Fortunately, with the discovery during the last century of about sixty thousand Han-period documents in Central Asia and western China preserved on strips of wood and bamboo, scholars have been able, for the first time, to put together many of the missing pieces. In this first volume of his monumental history, Chun-shu Chang uses these newfound documents to analyze the ways in which political, institutional, social, economic, military, religious, and thought systems developed and changed in the critical period from early China to the Han empire (ca. 1600 B.C. – A.D. 220). In addition to exploring the formation and growth of the Chinese empire and its impact on early nation-building and later territorial expansion, Chang also provides insights into the life and character of critical historical figures such as the First Emperor (221– 210 B.C.) of the Ch’in and Wu-ti (141– 87 B.C.) of the Han, who were the principal agents in redefining China and its relationships with other parts of Asia. As never before, Chang’s study enables an understanding of the origins and development of the concepts of state, nation, nationalism, imperialism, ethnicity, and Chineseness in ancient and early Imperial China, offering the first systematic reconstruction of the history of Chinese acquisition and colonization. Chun-shu Changis Professor of History at the University of Michigan and is the author, with Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, ofCrisis and Transformation in Seventeenth-Century ChinaandRedefining History: Ghosts, Spirits, and Human Society in P’u Sung-ling’s World, 1640–1715. “An extraordinary survey of the political and administrative history of early imperial China, which makes available a body of evidence and scholarship otherwise inaccessible to English-readers. The underpinning of research is truly stupendous.” —Ray Van Dam, Professor, Department of History, University of Michigan “Powerfully argues from literary and archaeological records that empire, modeled on Han paradigms, has largely defined Chinese civilization ever since.” —Joanna Waley-Cohen, Professor, Department of History, New York University

Author : Tom Miller
Publisher : Zed Books Ltd.
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2017-02-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781783609260

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China's Asian Dream by Tom Miller Pdf

"China", Napoleon once remarked, "is a sleeping lion. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." In 2014, President Xi Jinping triumphantly declared the lion had awakened. Under his leadership, China is pursuing a dream to restore its historical position as the dominant power in Asia. From the Mekong River Basin to the Central Asian steppe, China is flexing its economic muscles for strategic ends. By setting up new regional financial institutions, Beijing is challenging the post-World War II order established under the watchful eye of Washington. And by funding and building roads, railways, ports and power lines—a New Silk Road across Eurasia and through the South China Sea and Indian Ocean—China aims to draw its neighbours ever tighter into its embrace. Combining a geopolitical overview with on-the-ground reportage from a dozen countries, China’s Asian Dream offers a fresh perspective on the rise of China’ and asks: what does it means for the future of Asia?

Author : Mark Edward Lewis
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 334 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2010-10-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674265424

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The Early Chinese Empires by Mark Edward Lewis Pdf

In 221 BC, the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia. The Qin and Han constitute the “classical period” of Chinese history—a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the West. Mark Edward Lewis highlights the key challenges faced by the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity of peoples. He traces the drastic measures taken to transcend, without eliminating, these regional differences: the invention of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the state; the establishment of a common script for communication and a state-sponsored canon for the propagation of Confucian ideals; the flourishing of the great families, whose domination of local society rested on wealth, landholding, and elaborate kinship structures; the demilitarization of the interior; and the impact of non-Chinese warrior-nomads in setting the boundaries of an emerging Chinese identity. The first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, The Early Chinese Empires illuminates many formative events in China’s long history of imperialism—events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.

Author : Odd Arne Westad
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 544 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2012-08-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9780465029365

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Restless Empire by Odd Arne Westad Pdf

As the twenty-first century dawns, China stands at a crossroads. The largest and most populous country on earth and currently the world's second biggest economy, China has recently reclaimed its historic place at the center of global affairs after decades of internal chaos and disastrous foreign relations. But even as China tentatively reengages with the outside world, the contradictions of its development risks pushing it back into an era of insularity and instability—a regression that, as China's recent history shows, would have serious implications for all other nations. In Restless Empire, award-winning historian Odd Arne Westad traces China's complex foreign affairs over the past 250 years, identifying the forces that will determine the country's path in the decades to come. Since the height of the Qing Empire in the eighteenth century, China's interactions—and confrontations—with foreign powers have caused its worldview to fluctuate wildly between extremes of dominance and subjugation, emulation and defiance. From the invasion of Burma in the 1760s to the Boxer Rebellion in the early 20th century to the 2001 standoff over a downed U.S. spy plane, many of these encounters have left Chinese with a lingering sense of humiliation and resentment, and inflamed their notions of justice, hierarchy, and Chinese centrality in world affairs. Recently, China's rising influence on the world stage has shown what the country stands to gain from international cooperation and openness. But as Westad shows, the nation's success will ultimately hinge on its ability to engage with potential international partners while simultaneously safeguarding its own strength and stability. An in-depth study by one of our most respected authorities on international relations and contemporary East Asian history, Restless Empire is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the recent past and probable future of this dynamic and complex nation.

Author : Wang Hui
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 195 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2014-10-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674966963

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China from Empire to Nation-State by Wang Hui Pdf

This translation of the introduction to Wang Hui’s Rise of Modern Chinese Thought (2004) makes part of his four-volume masterwork available to English readers for the first time. A leading public intellectual in China, Wang charts the historical currents that have shaped Chinese modernity from the Song Dynasty to the present day.

Author : Jin Xu
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 385 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2021-02-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9780300258271

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Empire of Silver by Jin Xu Pdf

A thousand-year history of how China’s obsession with silver influenced the country’s financial well-being, global standing, and political stability This revelatory account of the ways silver shaped Chinese history shows how an obsession with “white metal” held China back from financial modernization. First used as currency during the Song dynasty in around 900 CE, silver gradually became central to China’s economic framework and was officially monetized in the middle of the Ming dynasty during the sixteenth century. However, due to the early adoption of paper money in China, silver was not formed into coins but became a cumbersome “weighing currency,” for which ingots had to be constantly examined for weight and purity—an unwieldy practice that lasted for centuries. While China’s interest in silver spurred new avenues of trade and helped increase the country’s global economic footprint, Jin Xu argues that, in the long run, silver played a key role in the struggles and entanglements that led to the decline of the Chinese empire.

Author : Christopher A. Ford
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 394 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2010-05-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9780813173771

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The Mind of Empire by Christopher A. Ford Pdf

In the last century, no other nation has grown and transformed itself with such zeal as China. With a booming economy, a formidable military, and a rapidly expanding population, China is emerging as a twenty-first-century global superpower. China's prosperity has increased dramatically in the last two decades, propelling the nation to a prominent position in the international community. Yet China's ancient history still informs and shapes its understanding of itself in relation to the world. As a highly developed and modern nation, China is something of a paradox. Though China is an international leader in modern business and technology, its past remains a source of guiding principles for the nation's foreign policy. In The Mind of Empire: China's History and Modern Foreign Relations, Christopher A. Ford demonstrates how China's historical awareness shapes its objectives and how the resulting national consciousness continues to influence the country's policymaking. Despite its increasing prominence among modern, developed nations, China continues to seek guidance from a past characterized by Confucian notions of hierarchical political order and a "moral geography" that places China at the center of the civilized world. The Mind of Empire describes how these attitudes have clashed with traditional Western ideals of sovereignty and international law. Ford speculates about how China's legacy may continue to shape its foreign relations and offers a warning about the potential global consequences. He examines major themes in China's conception of domestic and global political order, describes key historical precedents, and outlines the remarkable continuity of China's Sinocentric stance. Expertly synthesizing historical, philosophical, religious, and cultural analysis into a cohesive study of the Chinese worldview, Ford offers revealing insights into modern China. The Mind of Empire tracks China's astonishing development within the framework of a national ideology that is intrinsically linked to the distant past. Ford's perspective is both pertinent and prescient at a time when China is expanding into new areas of power, both economically and militarily. As China's power and influence continue to grow, its reliance on ancient philosophies and political systems will shape its approach to foreign policy in idiosyncratic and, perhaps, highly problematic ways.

Author : Joseph W. Esherick,C.X. George Wei
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2013-12-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9781134612154

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China by Joseph W. Esherick,C.X. George Wei Pdf

The Qing dynasty was China’s last, and it created an empire of unprecedented size and prosperity. However in 1911 the empire collapsed within a few short months, and China embarked on a revolutionary course that lasted through most of the twentieth century. The 1911 Revolution ended two millennia of imperial rule and established the Republic of China, but dissatisfaction with the early republic fuelled further revolutionary movements, each intended to be more thoroughgoing than the last, from the National Revolution of the 1920s, to the Communist Revolution, and finally the Cultural Revolution. On the centenary of the 1911 Revolution, Chinese scholars debated the causes and significance of the empire’s collapse, and this book presents twelve of the most important contributions. Rather than focusing on Sun Yat-sen’s relatively weak and divided revolutionary movement, as much previous scholarship has, these studies examine the internal dynamics of political and socio-economic change in China. The chapters reveal how reforms in education, army organization, and constitutional rule created new social forces and political movements that undermined dynastic legitimacy within China and on its frontiers. Through detailed analyses, using new archival, memoir, diary, and newspaper sources, the authors cast new light on the sudden collapse of an empire that many thought was at last embarked on a road to reform and national rejuvenation. China: How the Empire Fell will be of huge interest to students and scholars of modern Chinese history as well as those of contemporary China.

Author : William T. Rowe
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2009-10-15
Category : History
ISBN : 0674036123

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China's Last Empire by William T. Rowe Pdf

In a brisk revisionist history, William Rowe challenges the standard narrative of Qing China as a decadent, inward-looking state that failed to keep pace with the modern West. The Great Qing was the second major Chinese empire ruled by foreigners. Three strong Manchu emperors worked diligently to secure an alliance with the conquered Ming gentry, though many of their social edicts—especially the requirement that ethnic Han men wear queues—were fiercely resisted. As advocates of a “universal” empire, Qing rulers also achieved an enormous expansion of the Chinese realm over the course of three centuries, including the conquest and incorporation of Turkic and Tibetan peoples in the west, vast migration into the southwest, and the colonization of Taiwan. Despite this geographic range and the accompanying social and economic complexity, the Qing ideal of “small government” worked well when outside threats were minimal. But the nineteenth-century Opium Wars forced China to become a player in a predatory international contest involving Western powers, while the devastating uprisings of the Taiping and Boxer rebellions signaled an urgent need for internal reform. Comprehensive state-mandated changes during the early twentieth century were not enough to hold back the nationalist tide of 1911, but they provided a new foundation for the Republican and Communist states that would follow. This original, thought-provoking history of China’s last empire is a must-read for understanding the challenges facing China today.

Author : Willem Van Kemenade
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 477 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2010-12-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780307758361

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China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Inc. by Willem Van Kemenade Pdf

On the eve of June 30, Hong Kong was officially passed back to China. This event will mark what Willem van Kemenade sees as the start of an increasingly problematic -- and even dangerous -- reintegration of the old Chinese empire into a new world superpower. Since the early 1980s, investment money has been pouring into China from Hong Kong and trade has escalated at a rocket's pace. A few years later, the same pattern began between China and Taiwan. The combination of Hong Kong/Taiwan management, financial and export know-how with China's inexhaustible pool of cheap labor and land has enabled China in one decade to leap from an impoverished revolutionary state to a major international trading power. This economic boom, in conjunction with the violation of intellectual property rights, systematic tax fraud, and the corruption of the police force, has helped shape the "socialist market economy," China's third way -- and a new mix of old-fashioned Soviet Communism and East Asian capitalism. The formal addition of Hong Kong will add to this mixture the democratic structures set in place by the British. And, as China moves to reclaim Taiwan (the process has already begun), it will be incorporating a rival Chinese sub-nation with a fully election-based political system and a powerful independence movement. Can such a reunified China resist the "spiritual pollution" of democratic values, human rights, and political freedom? Will it become the first depoliticized "corporatist superpower"? What are the prospects that reunification will be peaceful? Van Kemenade's portrait of the true internal power structures of the three Chinas provides our clearest look yet at the fastest-rising new empire in the world today.

Author : Cecilia Lindqvist
Publisher : Da Capo Press
Page : 426 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2009-04-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9780786731992

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China by Cecilia Lindqvist Pdf

The origins of Chinese ideographs were not known until 1899, when a scholar went to an apothecary for some medicine made of “dragon bone.” To his surprise, the bone, which had not yet been ground into powder, contained a number of carved inscriptions. Thus began the exploration of the 3000-year-old sources of the written characters still used in China today. In this unparalleled and deeply researched book, Cecilia Lindqvist tells the story of these characters and shows how their shapes and concepts have permeated all of Chinese thought, architecture, art, and culture.