ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book illustrates a mass proliferation of harmony, where everything and anything is supposed to be harmonious. It first explains the reason for discussing the Chinese dream of a harmonious world as such. It then introduces the imagination of China as the other country to which that discourse responds, and explains the assumptions about time, space and multiplicity that typically go into such an imagination. Specifically, harmonious world has been understood as a development and alternative expression of China's peaceful rise, the set phrase that had a short period of popularity in the earlier days of Hu's presidency. The book focuses on Chinese dreams of a harmonious world' that have been articulated in the wake of Hu Jintao's launch of it as a major policy term.
