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How Many Asymmetries? Continuities, Transformations, and Puzzles in the Study of Chinese Foreign Relations
How many different kinds of asymmetries do we have to pay attention to in understanding the long history of China’s foreign relations and connecting that history to discussions of the present? This paper finds at least six:
- China developed writing and record keeping earlier than many of its neighbors.
- China was much larger in area and population than its neighbors.
- But Europeans and Americans were superior in technology from about 1800.
- Europeans, Americans, and Japanese also mobilized national resources for inter-state competition much more effectively than China.
- But China was still too big to conquer and rule as a stable colony.
- China today is too big for political experiment or clarity of process, which makes its international interactions harder to interpret than those of some smaller states.
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