China is dominating news cycles globally – beginning with the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan early this year and Donald Trump’s accusation t...
China is dominating news cycles globally – beginning with the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan early this year and Donald Trump’s accusation that it has “total control over the World Health Organisation”. Earlier this month, military tensions with India along the Line of Actual Control in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh escalated after the death of 20 Indian soldiers. There is now growing anti-Chinese rhetoric in India amid calls to boycott Chinese goods. China also recently engaged in territorial disputes with Nepal and Japan.
This interview with Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford, explores China’s social, political and economic history to help determine a global response to the country’s recent actions.
Mitter describes China’s evolution from “command socialism to market-driven socialism”, its rise as the driver of a global consumerist economy, and how the “century of humiliation” continues to be the dominant narrative of its nation building.
Excerpts:
Arunoday Majumder: These days the focus is almost entirely on the Chinese state and its diplomatic, military and trade arms. Do you think that the responses to China will be far more fruitful if the world tries to know a little more about the society in which the Chinese state operates?
Rana Mitter: That’s a very shrewd question and I think it...