Everything under the heavens
Subtitle: how the past helps shape China's push for global power
By: Howard W. French
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 330
ISBN-13: 9780385353328
Subjects: Geopolitics; Strategic culture; Foreign relations
Description: For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, reports Howard French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is a strain of thinking that casts China's present-day actions in decidedly historical terms, as the path to restoring the dynastic glory of the past. If we understand how that historical identity relates to current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become--and to interact wisely with a future peer.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-309) and index.
Table of contents: title: Timeline of Chinese dynasties and other key events; title: Introduction; title: National humiliation; title: Island barbarians; title: The gullet of the world; title: A pacified south; title: Sons of heaven, setting suns; title: Claims and markers; title: Conclusion.