What Does Chinese History Tell Us About China’s Rise?

USCI presents a talk with Notre Dame's Victoria Hui.

Chinese take great pride in China’s “5,000 years of civilization.” In the recent outpouring of Chinese nationalism, “angry youth” explained that their nationalist sentiments were partly driven by the “rediscovery of ancient China.” Chinese IR scholars have turned to Chinese history to support the official claim of “peaceful rise,” suggesting that China never sought territorial expansion in the past and will never do so in the future. Victoria Hui examines this claim by analyzing China’s historical records. She argues for the centrality of war in China’s formation and transformation throughout Chinese history.

Victoria Hui's research examines the dynamics of international politics, the origins of constitutionalism, and the development of commerce in historical China and historical Europe. She has published War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2005), as well as articles and chapters in International Organization, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of Political Philosophy, and Balance of Power in World History. She is currently teaching at the University of Notre Dame's Department of Political Science and is working on "war and historical China."