ABSTRACT
In conceptualizing China’s position in the world during the first phase of Western expansion, it seems no longer adequate to pose a model of Western “impact” and Chinese “response.” Rather, we need to think of China’s history in this era as but one part of an increasingly interconnected process of world history, one in which China, the West, and indeed much of the rest of the globe underwent changes marked by an increasing similarity one to another, as well as by a growing systemic interdependence. As Joseph Fletcher pointed out, it was precisely in this three-century period that previously compartmentalized “histories” gradually began to constitute a unified “history.” 1 Politically and culturally the major civilizations were still of course quite distinctive, and diplomatically their links remained minimal. Yet these obvious facts should not blind us to the equally remarkable extent to which demographically, economically, and even socially, the early modern era witnessed common, recognizable sets of changes around the globe. Here let me begin by stressing the links and parallels in the case of China, and then return to the question of the Middle Kingdom’s persistent distinctiveness.
