This global history as the Chinese would write it gives brilliant and unconventional insights
for understanding China's role in the world especially the drive to Make China Great Again. We
in the West routinely ask: What does China want? The answer is quite simple: the superpower
status it always had but briefly lost. In this colorful informative story filled with
fascinating characters epic battles influential thinkers and decisive moments we come to
understand how the Chinese view their own history and how its narrative is distinctly different
from that of Western civilization. More important we come to see how this unique Chinese
history of the world shapes China's economic policy attitude toward the United States and the
rest of the world relations with its neighbors positions on democracy and human rights and
notions of good government. As the Chinese see it for as far back as anyone can remember
China had the richest economy the strongest military and the most advanced philosophy
culture and technology. The collision with the West knocked China's historical narrative off
course for the first time as its 5 000-year reign as an unrivaled superpower came to an
ignominious end. Ever since the Chinese have licked their wounds and fixated on returning
their country to its former greatness restoring the Chinese version of its place in the world
as they had always known it. For the Chinese the question was never if they could reclaim
their former dominant position in the world but when.
