ABSTRACT
China is no stranger to global interactions. The early Ming dynasty saw China launch grand seafaring ventures that predated those of Columbus and reached all the countries around the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. Neither was the Chinese mind as reclusive as the image of the Great Wall conjures up. Not only did the Chinese civilization lead the world in several historic inventions but it also adopted and adapted Buddhism as its leading religion. And at the time when the Pope was putting Galileo on trial in Rome, Jesuits were preaching the Galilean gospel in Beijing (Boorstin, 1983:62). From this perspective, China’s isolation during the late Mao era was a historical aberration, forced by China’s historic confrontation with both the United States and the Soviet Union.2
