Tables and Figures Acknowledgments Introduction: The China Order Arrangement of the Book 1. The Centralia: The Origin and the Basics The Chinese Nomenclature: More than Just Semantics China as a World: Ecogeography Shapes the Mind The Chinese Peoples and the Chinese Multination History and the Writing of History in China The Precondition: The Pre-Qin China The Glory and Peacefulness of the Warring States 2. The Qin-Han Polity and Chinese World Empire Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism The Qin Polity: The Chinese Totalitarianism The Qin Tianxia: A World Empire Order The Qin-Han Polity and the China Order The Fused Confucianism-Legalism The Consolidation and Expansion of the China Order The Recurrence of the China Order and the Great East-West Divergence The Evolution and Refinement of the China Order From the Second Great Disunion to the Ultimate China Order The Qing World Empire 3. The Forsaken Turn: The Song Era The Song: An Uncommon Qin-Han Empire Song’s Chinese World Chanyuan Treaty: China’s Peace of Westphalia Chanyuan System: A New World Order for Eastern Eurasia Chanyuan System in the Chinese Mind The Splendid Song: The Chinese World under the Chanyuan System Song Era: The Peak of Ancient Chinese Civilization 4. The China Order: An Assessment The China Order: The Characteristics The China Order versus the Westphalia System Ideal Governance for the Rulers at Exorbitant Expenses Great Incompatibility and Long Stagnation Deadly Sisyphus, Inescapable Inferno Why the Stagnation: A Pausing Note on Monopoly 5. The Century of Humiliation and Progress The Decay and Fading of the China Order Westernization: The Way to Survive The Unusual Fall of the Qing Empire The ROC on the Chinese Mainland: An Era of Opportunities Late-Qing and the Republican Eras: A Reassessment 6. Great Leap Backward The ROC: A Tenacious but Transforming Authoritarianism The Rise of the CCP Mao and the Mandate of the People Guns, Ruses, and Promises The PRC: A New Qin-Han State Post-Mao: The Qin-Han Polity Changes and Continues Suboptimal Performance, Rich State, Strong Military 7. The China Struggle Between Tianxia and Westphalia The Tianxia Mandate Mao’s Global War for a New China Order Rescued and Enriched by the Enemy Opening and Hiding: To Survive the End of the Cold War The China Dream: Rejuvenation and Global Governance Epilogue: The Scenarios Notes Bibliography Index

"Wang's The China Order offers an elegant analysis of 'what China is' and what China's rise represents." — Journal of Chinese Studies"The strengths of the book lie in its obvious erudition (including, for example, a 68-page bibliography of items in Chinese and English), the clarity of the overall revisionist argument, at a time when much commentary in English at least tends to well-established nostrums based on either liberal or realist postulates, and its extremely useful dissection of much of the terminology in which current debates about China's foreign policies are conducted." — Pacific Affairs"…[Wang's] presentation and documentation of his argument is so thorough and devastatingly masterful that anyone who wants to talk about a 'China model' really should be required to read this book." — China Quarterly"…a magisterial history of what the Chinese people, and both their Chinese and non-Chinese rulers over the centuries, have thought about how the entire world should be arranged." — Claremont Review of Books"…[a] thought-provoking volume … Highly recommended." — CHOICE"An original, important, well-researched, and powerfully argued exploration of the virtues and vices of the Chinese state from its ancient past to its likely future." — Edward Friedman, University of Wisconsin, Madison"A masterpiece. Wang provides a grand, sweeping, even epic review of two thousand years of Chinese history. His argument is compelling and well documented; the richness and variety of sources—Chinese and English—he cites is breathtaking. The book is likely to end up on the reading list of every serious student of China's position in the world for many years to come." — Daniel C. Lynch, author of China's Futures: PRC Elites Debate Economics, Politics, and Foreign Policy"This imaginative and provocative grand tour of Chinese cosmological order and geopolitical strategy, past and present, is destined to become a classic." — Ming Xia, author of The People's Congresses and Governance in China: Toward a Network Mode of Governance