ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a nationalist framework for understanding the evolution of empires. It analyzes the driving force and features of China’s growing imperialism. As sociologist Johian Galtung succinctly indicates in his ‘structural theory of imperialism’, imperialism can be understood as a relationship between the center and peripheries, one with either ‘harmony of interest’ or different levels of ‘disharmony of interest’. The idea of ‘informal imperialism’ thus deserves attention because it can explain how empires differ from each other, in terms of their ruling style. A more comprehensive theoretical framework is needed for tracing the origins and development of imperialism. The stronger the sense of vulnerability and trauma throughout the nation-state building process, at times manifested by nation-states’ xenophobic, racist and chauvinistic worldviews, the more aggressive, exploitative, coercive and assimilative the empire building of nation-states will be. China’s capital export associates with monopolies at its own economy, understood as a system of state capitalism.
