Chinese vs. Western Perspectives: Understanding Contemporary China

China is on the rise in the globalized world. The relationship between China and the United States has become the most important global issue in the twenty-first century. It is urgent to understand what is happening in China and where China is heading. However, there are many misconceptions about China in the West, which affect Westerners’ ability to objectively understand China, and, ultimately influence the making of foreign policy toward China. The author attempts to challenge the misconceptions coming from both Western societies and China, and offer an integrated picture of contemporary China through systematically examining the major aspects of contemporary Chinese society and culture with the most recent data, and presents convincing arguments in eighteen chapters for spurring mutual understanding between China and the West. The author intends this book to be an interdisciplinary and comprehensive guide to China for a general audience, and it covers a wide variety of topics, including history, family, population, Chinese women, economy, environmental issues, politics, religion, media, U.S.-China relations, and other subjects. This book demonstrates the author’s extensive research and thoughtful examination of many sides of controversial issues related to China with a nice balance of Western and Chinese scholarship. This is one of the few that are authored by scholars who originate from China and have their professional career in the United States, but it is distinctive from the rest of studies on this subject in that the author is committed to examining today’s China from Chinese as well as Western perspectives. This is not only a scholarly book, but also is suitable for general classes on China.

About the Author

Jinghao Zhou is associate professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. He is the author of three books: China’s Peaceful Rise in a Global Context: A Domestic Aspect of China’s Road Map to Democratization (Lexington Books, 2010, paperback edition, 2012), Remaking China’s Public Philosophy and Chinese Women’s Liberation: The Volatile Mixing of Confucianism, Marxism, and Feminism (Edwin Mellen Press, 2006), Remaking China’s Public Philosophy for the Twenty-first Century (Praeger Publishers, 2003). His thirty plus articles in English appear in various journals and newspapers, such as The Journal of Comparative Asian Development, American Journal of Chinese Studies, Journal of China: An International Journal, Asian Mission, Asian Perspective, Journal of International Women’s Studies, Journal of Religion and Society, In the National Interests, Journal of Church and State, International Journal of China Studies, China Review International, and Asia Times. He has also published more than forty articles in Chinese journals and newspapers.