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Reconstructing Resilient Communities after the Wenchuan Earthquake: Disaster Recovery in China looks at the changes in Chinese society following the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan from various perspectives ranging from reconstruction policy, mental care for disaster victims, tourism in disaster areas, ethnic minorities, and disaster prevention education. The Wenchuan Earthquake, which occurred three months prior to the Beijing Olympics, attracted worldwide attention in May of 2008. Following this natural disaster, the government in China conducted a delicate bargaining between government top-drown control and openness to its people and the international society in its effort to steer the reconstruction. This book examines the globalization of modern society through examination of these events and considers what we have learned from this disaster, subsequent reconstruction, and issues that may arise in the future.

In Search of Admiration and Respect examines the institutionalization of Chinese cultural diplomacy in the period between high imperialism and the international ascendance of the People's Republic of China. During these years, Chinese intellectuals and officials tried to promote the idea of China's cultural refinement in an effort to combat negative perceptions of the nation. Yanqiu Zheng argues that, unlike similar projects by more established powers, Chinese cultural diplomacy in this era was not carried out solely by a functional government agency; rather, limited resources forced an uneasy collaboration between the New York-based China Institute and the Chinese Nationalist government. In Search of Admiration and Respect uses the Chinese case to underscore what Zheng calls “infrastructure of persuasion,” in which American philanthropy, museums, exhibitions, and show business had disproportionate power in setting the agenda of unequal intercultural encounters. This volume also provides historical insights into China's ongoing quest for international recognition. Drawing upon diverse archival sources, Zheng expands the contours of cultural diplomacy beyond established powers and sheds light on the limited agency of peripheral nations in their self-representation.

The concept of sovereignty is a crucial foundation of the current world order. Regardless of their political ideologies no states can operate without claiming and justifying their sovereign power. The People's Republic of China (PRC)—one of the most powerful states in contemporary global politics—has been resorting to the logic of sovereignty to respond to many external and internal challenges, from territorial rights disputes to the Covid-19 pandemic. In this book, Pang Laikwan analyzes the historical roots of Chinese sovereignty. Surveying the four different political structures of modern China—imperial, republican, socialist, and post-socialist—and the dramatic ruptures between them, Pang argues that the ruling regime's sovereign anxiety cuts across the long twentieth century in China, providing a strong throughline for the state–society relations during moments of intense political instability. Focusing on political theory and cultural history, the book demonstrates how concepts such as popular sovereignty, territorial sovereignty, and economic sovereignty were constructed, and how sovereign power in China was both legitimized and subverted at various times by intellectuals and the ordinary people through a variety of media from painting and literature to internet-based memes. With the possibility of a new Cold War looming large, globalization disintegrating, and populism on the rise, Pang provides a timely reevaluation of the logic of sovereignty in China as power, discourse, and a basis for governance.

This is a systematic study of Matteo Ricci's (1552–610) enormous impact on the development of modern scientific and intellectual terminology in China.Taking the Sino‑estern cultural exchanges initiated by Western Jesuit missionaries in the late‑ing dynasty as its starting point, this book comprehensively presents the new terms coined by Ricci (and his collaborators) in his religious, geographical, geometrical, and astronomical Chinese writings. It uses a multitude of examples adopted from Ricci's Chinese works as well as from ancient Chinese documents to discuss etymological evolution. Ricci's early coinages of terms and their subsequent history demonstrate the role of interaction and scholarly collaboration between the late Ming Jesuits and Chinese intellectuals in the formation of modern Chinese lexicon. The research conclusions of this book will further advance Ming‑ynasty studies and contribute to a new understanding of the creation of modern Chinese lexicon.This book is a vital resource for students, scholars, and linguists studying and researching in the history of Chinese and early Mandarin. This volume will also be very interesting among students and scholars of Chinese literature and history, particularly among scholars who work in Ming history and literature.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license