"The Evolution of Chinese Grand Strategy, 1550-Present"

Speaker: Lyman Miller

Visiting Professor, Political Science, Stanford University

Assessments of the PRC's approach to its international context and Chinese “strategic culture” most often build on presumed continuities with China's imperial past. The understanding of the past incorporated into such analyses, however, is one no longer shared by many historians of China. The alternative approach pursued in this book project takes into account the stark discontinuities between China's present and its past. Three discontinuities stand out: the changed nature of the Chinese state; the changed nature of the international environment in which China operates; and the changed nature of warfare.