ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the traditions that go into forming the Chinese world view today. 'Opening up' as a central concept explaining political changes in China in the nineteenth and twentieth century is examined as a means of refuting the simple culturalist explanations of Chinese politics. 'Opening up', which underpins the relationship between China and the West, is examined in the light of the impact of the two forces on each other. The political perceptions of the Chinese elites before the seventeenth century, and particularly the eighteenth century, were based upon viewing China as the Middle Kingdom. The Chinese economy under the Qing dynasty was an agrarian economy. In the Qing dynasty period China saw a tremendous increase in population. The chapter concludes by tracing the growth of modern political movements in China - the 1911 Revolution and the May Fourth Movement - that laid the basis of the modern Chinese nation-state.
