With over 1.4 billion people and comprising almost 19% of global economic production, China’s importance to global politics cannot be overstated. It is one of the main protagonists of our times. Its emergence as a rising power and its global ambitions have raised new challenges and urgent questions about its role in a changing international order and the future of that order.

But are China’s behavior and significance adequately understood by the same concepts so frequently used to explain the experience of Western states? Concepts such as great power competition, empire, and the (new) Cold War have been used to explain China’s relationship with the world. To what extent do these concepts hold explanatory power, or do they reinforce unhelpful myths?

This panel brings together scholars from different disciplines — political science, history, and sociology — to demythologize China, and to generate fresher ways to think about China in the world. The panel will explore both China’s domestic and international politics. It will discuss its political legacies of imperial state formation and transnational exchanges, including with other parts of the Global South, its view of the future of the international order, its increasing competition with the US and the space left for cooperation, Taiwan’s prospects, the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the impact of its own domestic political challenges.

This event is sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the Anne & Bernard Spitzer Chair in International Relations

The conversation will take place in Shepard Hall SH-350

Time: 2:00-3:30 PM EDT

Free!

Registration