Today's China: Why it is Crucial to Know How Dragons Think (ePub)

There isn't a day that passes without someone bringing up China, yet both publicly and privately, the topic is frequently brought up using a basic narrative in which everything is black and white and the Celestial Empire is either completely wicked or the most effective location in the world. It is "superfluous" comments Jensen Cox "to underline how much both versions lead us astray".

In this book, the author draws an essential map of a culture full of charm and, at the same time, profoundly different from ours. A compass that, bypassing the many clich? An enthralling journey of discovery that examines some of the most characteristic traits of the Asian giant: from the fascination of writing to the conception of society and time, from power "with Chinese characteristics" to the mechanisms that guide and determine foreign policy; and yet the pervasive influence of Confucianism and that of Daoism, the aspiration to "collective harmony" and the habit of "cinesizing" everything that the Dragon encounters on its way.

Today's China a book-bridge that would like to avert the clash of civilizations for many now upon us. It is time to recognize that "the West needs China as much as China needs the West." On the horizon, "there is a very tiring job to do, a work of connection and weaving that can no longer be postponed, because without knowing and understanding one's interlocutor it is impossible to interact".