[...]... world and how it, in turn, is in uencing other nations are of widespread fascination and concern How China fares in the 21st century matters to everyone on the planet The goal of this book is to help normalize discussions of China, a country that is too often seen as to use the cliché— inscrutable My aim is to clear up sources of Western misunderstanding about China, provide insights into issues of significance... about China, and the kinds of ideas and misconceptions about the PRC that circulate within the United States One chapter is, in fact, devoted exclusively to U.S misunderstandings of China, Chinese misunderstandings of the United States, and the things that the two countries, which often present themselves as completely unlike one another, have in common There are some advantages to reading a book on China. .. factories fill the shelves of the world’s big-box stores China not only has the bomb, but it also maintains a special relationship with North Korea, a country whose nuclear ambitions are a source of grave concern in the West Given all this, the need for a book on China s present, subtitled what everyone needs to know, ” is self-evident The ways it is developing and being in uenced by other parts of the. .. is the new regime using Confucius? In addition to sanctioning the sage’s appearance during the Olympics and echoing the Analects and later Confucian texts in calls for “harmonious” social relations, the Chinese government has recently sponsored the creation and funding of “Confucius Institutes” in many parts of the world These are modeled in part on the German Goethe Institutes, and their stated intent... for all she does to help keep me aware of the difference between things that everyone needs to know about China and things that I simply find interesting about the country AUTHOR’S NOTE When I took my first class in Chinese history in the late 1970s, signing up for it on a whim, getting a clearer sense of the past and present of the world’s most populous nation seemed purely optional, in a way that it... about the PRC The following chapters seek to contribute to this effort and to show, in passing, some of the ways in which the West is misunderstood by China It is important to note two things, each of which relates to the scope of this book I want to stress first that this work, although aimed at readers in all parts of the world, has inevitably been shaped by the fact that I am most familiar with the. .. simply to further understanding of China s cultural legacy via things such as offering classes in the Chinese language and courses on Chinese history that emphasize continuities with the past and the “5,000 years of Chinese civilization” idea—a problematic one, given how many changes over time there have been in the size and shape of China as a country and the values and traditions of the people living... IN THE 21ST CENTURY quoted again by a young man who put a question to President Obama during the Shanghai “town hall” meeting that was part of the American leader’s November 2009 trip to China, had obvious relevance for the Olympic Opening Ceremony, since the live audience for the grand spectacle held in the Bird’s Nest Stadium included foreign leaders, among them George W Bush (the first sitting American... that visiting dignitaries are supposed to visit, as President Obama did late last year on his first trip to China, 12 CHINA IN THE 21ST CENTURY and view as representing the glories of the country’s artistic and architectural traditions It is also telling that the old pattern of feeling a need to choose between celebrating the words of Confucius or the deeds of the first emperor has been adandoned The Analects... emphasis on looking up to elders fit in well with the practices of ancestor worship, which predated his time and remained a mainstay of Chinese rural and sometimes also court life for many centuries after his death, he claimed that it was so hard to understand the affairs of human beings that he was in no position to speculate about the details of the afterlife 10 CHINA IN THE 21ST CENTURY Nevertheless, throughout . alt="" CHINA IN THE 21ST CENTURY This page intentionally left blank CHINA IN THE 21ST CENTURY WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW JEFFREY N. WASSERSTROM 1 2010 1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes. parts of the world and how it, in turn, is in uencing other nations are of widespread fascination and concern. How China fares in the 21st century matters to everyone on the planet. The goal. about the PRC. The following chapters seek to contribute to this effort and to show, in passing, some of the ways in which the West is misunderstood by China. It is important to note two things,