In a first part, the paper keeps track of the
historical background of China and concludes,
that despite the massive changes in the
country nowadays, China is just coming back
to its normality as an advanced cultural and
economical superpower. But this path is not an
easy one to go. In fact China faces many
internal difficulties by achieving the glorious
status of the once so called "middle kingdom"
(zhong guo), which will be presented in a
second step.
However, the ongoing transformations
challenge the western world massively, first of
all Europe. The old continent has not only to
accept the end of western domination, but is
also mandatorily and urgently forced to find
answers to a country with a completely
different thinking and value system. In a third
part, the western main misunderstandings of
China are analyzed and possible responses
introduced.
This paper was presented at the
30th conference of the
Association of Third World
Studies at Berry College, USA.