Abstract
<p>Today, conflicting understandings of China jostle for attention, as dominant Anglophone narratives contrast with mainstream Chinese discourses. Across much of the West, perceptions of China have changed markedly, from assumptions about China’s ‘convergence’ through engagement to a politics of irreconcilable difference and confrontation. This book examines how views of China have shifted over a decade by critiquing three dominant narratives of China as a risen, global power: the return of geopolitics, contesting liberal order and collaborative governance. While the first two narratives are strongest in the West, the third is primarily embedded in Chinese global visions. Bridging work in China Studies and International Relations, Global Political Economy and critical geopolitics, the book uses the lens of the politics of knowledge production and discourse. It argues that China as a major power needs to be understood in all its contested complexity and to be taken seriously on its own terms as a distinctive entity, but one whose development and visions have emerged in dialectical, intertwined relationships with many existing features of global order.</p>