This issue of China Currents focuses on a broad question that has been long discussed and likely will profoundly shape the world in the coming decades: what are the implications of the rise of China?
John Givens begins the discussion with a thought provoking essay that explores the question of why the world, and particularly the United States, has not better prepared for the emergence of China as a global power. This is part two of a series. The first — Is the World Ready for China Risen? — was published this year in China Currents, Volume 21, No. 1.
Suresh Sharma offers a deep historical perspective into the rise of China, positing that no civilization has risen to world dominance for a second time. Is China, which arguably was the world’s leading civilization during the Tang Dynasty, poised to rise to the top again? Sharma offers some conditions that world leading powers have all fulfilled.
Marin Ekstrom examines an aspect of modern China that the leadership in Beijing has sought to close a curtain on: policies in Xinjiang. Ekstrom examines the history of China and Xinjiang and how previously more benevolent policies toward people in that far-flung region have changed for the worse.
Penelope Prime, our managing editor, looks back on her own experience as an academic in Nanjing in the early 1980s and offers comparisons with the present day.
The issue closes out with an interview with William Frazier, an American who has been doing business in China for years. Frazier discusses his work as a Black American businessman in China, including his efforts to promote and make more visible Black entrepreneurs in China. As he says: “The Black community needs to know how to do business in China.”
