ABSTRACT
In late 2006, China’s state-run television channel Chinese Central TV2 carried a multi-episode documentary on ‘The Rise of the Great Powers’ twice in prime time. Each episode centred on the basic question of how did ‘so many tiny, population-constrained, resource-poor, often warring, mostly European states make it so big on the world stage?’ Whilst left unstated, this series raised the complementary question for Chinese viewers: why with its huge population, iron and coal resources, inventive efforts, and unified country, China had not risen to such Great Power status in modern times?1
