Cambridge Scholars Publishing China's Development from a Global Perspective

For a long time, the idea of China as a culture and society which was voluntarily secluding itself from the rest of the world was dominant. But, in reality, China has always been part of the world, just as the world has always sought to penetrate China. The relationship between China and the world was, in the past, sometimes smooth, and at other times it was difficult, but nevertheless the bond remained alive. This collection presents an analysis of China from a global perspective within a broad temporal and spatial spectrum. It reveals the early relations established between the Roman Empire and China, the dynamics developed with the countries of the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and Japan, and the gradual path of Europeans and Americans towards China. The book reviews the development of diplomatic relations, the signing of agreements and alliances, and the rise and resolution of conflicts. It also analyses the forging of economic relations, the establishment of commercial exchanges and the creation of companies, professional bodies and institutions of collaboration. About the Author María Dolores Elizalde is a researcher at the Institute of History,at the Spanish National Council for Scientific Research, Spain. She specialises in international history, colonial societies and colonial and postcolonial processes in Asia and the Pacific in the 19th century. She received her doctorate in history from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, and her previous education experiences include being a research scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, UK. She has more than 80 publications to her name, including Nacionalismo versus Colonialism in Filipinas, India and Vietnam (2013) and Filipinas, siglo XIX: Coexistencia e Interacción entre comunidades en el imperio español (2017). Wang Jianlang is Professor and Director of the Institute of Modern History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and is Vice-President and Secretary General of the Association of Chinese Historians, China. He obtained his PhD in History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and he specialises in the history of the foreign relations of modern China. His publications include Foreign Policy of National Government During the Pacific War (2010), China’s Journey to Abolishing Unequal Treaties (2000) and International Relations in the Far Eastern Crisis, July 1937–December 1938 (1996).