ABSTRACT
The cosmopolitan world of wide-ranging interactions was a civilizational complex that China centered through the precept of tianxia, meaning all under heaven. The trading port cities on the eastern coast dating back to this tianxia world became those ports that developed colonial cosmopolitan worlds starting in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the three most famous to Europeans becoming Hong Kong, Canton and Shanghai. With colonialism, Chinese cosmopolitanism recentered towards Europe as China was drawn into a European-dominated capitalist economy. With socialism, Chinese cosmopolitanism re-centered again towards the socialist world, dominated by Russia and then towards the third world. In the postsocialist era, Chinese cosmopolitanism's dominant focus has been twofold. The first phase focused on the United States and more generally on attracting foreign direct investment into China, making China into the workshop of the world. The second phase is called in China "going out" and in the international press "the rise of China.".
