Guoqi Xu, "The Idea of China: A Contested History" (Harvard UP, 2026)

New Books in Asian American Studies · Mar 8, 2026 · 1h 10m

What counts as China, and who counts as Chinese?

China became a capitalist superpower by investing in globalization. Now that it has established its credentials—and emerged as a major US competitor—its leaders are looking within, focused on suppressing dissent and fostering cohesion. The result has been an increasingly nationalist cultural agenda, celebrating a Chinese identity steeped in the mystique of the Middle Kingdom and nostalgia for heroic twentieth-century resistance. Yet Chinese nationalism, like nationalism everywhere, is fraught. Few Westerners, and even fewer Chinese, recognize…