ABSTRACT
An ancient empire, China was one of the most powerful nations in the world before the spread of the Industrial Revolution that gave rise to modern European powers, the U.S.A., and Japan. A mid-kingdom, accounting for about one third of the world output as recently as the early nineteenth century, China began a steady decline thereafter as it plunged into war, famine, isolation, and revolution. After about 200 years of struggle for national independence and modernization, China reemerged as a global power in the twenty-first century. If China is able to sustain the momentum of the recent decades, it will ultimately regain the glorious position it enjoyed two centuries ago. The Summer Olympics of 2008 is a symbol of this national resurgence from a dark cocoon of decline and isolation into the light of international recognition.
