ABSTRACT
With increasing regularity, the People’s Republic of China is appearing in western news bulletins, television documentaries, newspapers, feature articles, films-and of course sporting record books-coinciding, it so happens, with the end of the twentieth century. Historians will look back and surely mark the last hundred years as hugely significant in the chain of events that have led to the present position of China as an emerging world superpower. The nation’s status as a superpower is heavily dependent on the fact that it is the most populous country in the world and that potentially it holds the key to the growth of the world economy. But there are other reasons for seeing China as pre-eminent. First, it has the fastest growing economy in the world, sustaining an average annual growth of around 10 per cent over the last decade.1 Second, it is well placed in the Pacific Rim to stand alongside other economies in the region-South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, and even the United States (California, notably). Third, it has a long tradition as a trading nation from the times of the Silk Road2 to the nineteenth century links with western countries. And fourth, China has a very distinct sense of identity; even though in much of its history the country has been dominated by others, it has nevertheless remained relatively untainted by outside influences.
