| Summary/Abstract |
This study of the historical Chinese cases is an engagement with the ongoing debates on the Chinese view of international order and the prospect of Beijing’s supersize project like the Belt and Road Initiative. The overarching idea of this paper is to locate and contemplate the similar dynamics of an ethnically diverse Asia in the sixth, and the seventeenth century, and the continued feature about how various Chinese regimes managed it. Four historical types of international orders (Tianxia) China perceived are accordingly constructed. It argues, as the current internal order is partially challenged by China’s rise, that either the future order or the Chinese ethnic policy will be a mixed one resembling my historical types. A purified Westphalian ‘myth’ and the modern order based on it may be reaching its end, as we are envisaging.
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