Watching China’s Rise from the Academic Margins

Few events have shaken the global political and economic order in the past two decades as the (re)emergence of China as a powerful actor on the world stage. While there has been ample discussion of the geostrategic implications of this rise, the question of whether this also implies the emergence of new paradigms of governance or rulership has received less attention. This talk will highlight some alternative political concepts that have either been coined in China or on China in the recent past, such as the notions of tianxia, the China model or the Chinese dream. By looking at the peculiar fusions of history, present and future in these concepts, the difficult role of Sinology as a discipline at the academic margins will also be reflected upon, especially now that its object of study, China, moves to the center of global attention.