China Science

With an economy and population that dwarf most industrialized nations, China is emerging as a 21st century global superpower. Even though China is an international leader in modern business and technology, its ancient history exerts a powerful force on its foreign policy. Christopher A. Ford expertly traces China's self-image and its role in the world order - from the age of Confucius to today. Ford argues that despite its exposure to and experience of the modern world, China is still strongly influenced by a hierarchical view of political order.

In the past 30 years, China has transformed from an impoverished country where peasants comprised the largest portion of the populace to an economic power with an expanding middle class and more megacities than anywhere else on Earth. This remarkable transformation has required, and will continue to demand, massive quantities of resources. Like every other major power in modern history, China is looking outward to find them.

While Pang-Mei Natasha Chang was a Chinese Studies major at Harvard University, she stumbled across the name of her 83-year-old great aunt Chang Yu-i in a history book. Over the next several years, Pang-Mei spent long afternoons drawing forth her aunt's story. Born in Shanghai to a well-to-do family, Chang Yu-i lived a life of defiance, continually breaking class and culture barriers.

Is geography really destiny? Our maps may no longer be stalked by dragons and monsters, but our perceptions of the world are still shaped by geographic myths. Myths like Europe being the centre of the world. Or that border walls are the solution to migration. Or that Russia is predestined to threaten its neighbours. In his punchy and authoritative book, Paul Richardson challenges recent popular accounts of geographical determinism and shows that how we see the world represented often isn't how it really is - that the map is not the territory.

Many studies of China's relations with and influence on Southeast Asia tend to focus on how Beijing has used its power asymmetry to achieve regional influence. Yet, scholars and pundits often fail to appreciate the complexity of the contemporary Chinese state and society, and just how fragmented, decentralized, and internationalized China is today. In The Ripple Effect, Enze Han argues that a focus on the Chinese state alone is not sufficient for a comprehensive understanding of China's influence in Southeast Asia. Instead, we must look beyond the Chinese state, to non-state actors from China.

Bill Birtles was rushed out of China in September 2020, forced to seek refuge in the Australian Embassy in Beijing while diplomats delicately negotiated his departure in an unprecedented standoff with China's government. Five days later, he was on a flight back to Sydney, leaving China without any Australian foreign correspondents on the ground for the first time in decades. A journalist's perspective on this rising global power has never been more important, as Australia's relationship with China undergoes an extraordinary change.

The British government has embarked on an ambitious and legally-binding climate change target: reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions to Net Zero by 2050. The Net Zero policy was subject to almost no parliamentary or public scrutiny, and is universally approved by our political class. But what will its consequences be?

The Chinese government has more control over more wealth than any other government in world history. With the Communist Party controlling the "commanding heights" of the world's second-largest economy, China appears ideally structured to pursue economic statecraft, using economic resources to advance its foreign policy goals. Yet as this book shows, domestic complications frequently constrain Chinese leaders. They have responded with a distinctive approach to economic statecraft: orchestration.

The iron wheel began to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The room grew darker. As the light lessened, so did the sound. Deeba and Zanna stared at each other in wonder. The noise of the cars and vans and motorbikes outside grew tinny. The wheel turned off all the cars and turned off all the lamps. It was turning off London.... Zanna and Deeba are two girls leading ordinary lives, until they stumble into the world of UnLondun, an urban Wonderland where all the lost and broken things of London end up.

At the beginning of the 21st century, China is poised to become a major global power. And though much has been written of China's rise, a crucial aspect of this transformation has gone largely unnoticed: the way that China is using soft power to appeal to its neighbors and to distant countries alike.

Beijing presents a clear and gathering threat to Washington, but not for the reasons you think. China's challenge to the West stems from its transformative brand of capitalism and an entirely different conception of the international community.

What can the massive protests that have roiled Hong Kong and the harsh repressive moves made against activists tell us about where this special metropolis is heading? And about how a resurgent China under strongman rule is challenging and reshaping the international order? Jeffrey Wasserstrom draws on his many visits to the city and his background as a specialist in the history of protests against authoritarianism to make a powerful and sobering case for the near inevitability of China’s imposing its model on Hong Kong.

In the next decade and a half, China and India will become two of the world's indispensable powers - whether they rise peacefully or not. During that time, Asia will surpass the combined strength of North America and Europe in economic might, population size, and military spending. Both India and China will have vetoes over many international decisions, from climate change to global trade, human rights, and business standards.

China GDP has grown from $300 per capita to more than $10,000 in the past thirty years and lifted more people into the middle class than in any other country at any other point in human history. It is important for investors, US companies and anyone interested in the global economy to understand China. Author Jonathan A. Krane provides an inside look at China's transformation into a global superpower and explains why the relationship between the US and China is the most critical economic relationship in the world today.

The First Superapp provides a glimpse of the future, and Kevin Shimota, a former top executive at WeChat, tells the inside story of how this phenomenon began in the context of China’s unique internet. He tells the story of WeChat’s creation and its climb to become the first superapp, providing insights on the psyche of WeChat’s founder, and of modern China tech to explain the fundamentals of these new innovations and how the framework they form could be reproduced beyond China.

From one of the most admired reporters covering China today comes a vital new account of the life and political vision of Xi Jinping, the authoritarian leader of the People's Republic whose hard-edged tactics have set the rising superpower on a collision with Western liberal democracies. As a China reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Chun Han Wong has chronicled Xi's hardline strategy for crushing dissent and his political repression in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Now, Wong has drawn on his years of reporting across China to create a lucid and historically rooted account of China's leader.

A century ago, Europe's diplomats mismanaged the crisis triggered by the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and the continent plunged into World War I, which killed millions, toppled dynasties, and destroyed empires. Today, as the 100th anniversary of the Great War prompts renewed debate about the war's causes, scholars and policy experts are also considering the parallels between the present international system and the world of 1914. Are China and the United States fated to follow in the footsteps of previous great power rivals?

Kokosnuss im "Drachenland" China! Seit Tagen liest Kokosnuss alles, was er zum spannenden Thema "China" in die Pfoten bekommen kann. Da platzt Oskar mit einer Überraschung in die Drachenhöhle: Sein Vater, der Fressdrache Herbert, plant eine Reise zur Verwandtschaft nach China. "Auweia, kennt sich dein Papa mit chinesischen Drachen aus?", fragt Matilda. "Ich glaube, dort muss man sehr höflich sein." Da schlägt Kokosnuss vor, dass die Freunde Herbert nach China begleiten. Denn er weiß, dass mit dem mächtigen chinesischen Drachen Long Long nicht zu spaßen ist.

In the first book of its kind, The Path draws on the work of six of the great - but largely unknown - Chinese philosophers to offer a fresh and revolutionary guide to human flourishing. By examining the teachings of Chinese thinkers and explaining what they reveal about our daily lives - from greeting others to raising children - The Path challenges some of our deepest held assumptions.

In deze serie colleges over "Oosterse filosofie" nemen filosofen en deskundigen u mee naar verschillende filosofische en spirituele tradities in India, China, Tibet en Japan: hindoeïsme, (zen)boeddhisme, confucianisme en taoïsme, waarbij het "denken vanuit het hart" een grote rol speelt. Zowel de oude als de moderne tradities komen aan bod. De serie wordt afgerond met een college comparatieve filosofie oost-west, waarin wordt stilgestaan bij de overeenkomsten en verschillen en het belang van de dialoog tussen de verscheidene wereldbeschouwingen.