Book-launch: China through the Eyes of Asia
On the 30th of June a collective monograph “China through the Eyes of Asia” was launched at UNIAN news agency.
The authors’ aim was to examine how China is framed in media and political discourses of the neighboring countries and how this vision has been changing over time. “It is amazing how drastically different the perceptions of supposedly the same object – that of a neighboring country – may be, as seen from the perspective of different cultures and how a variety of discourses emerge and develop each in their own way to reflect on the phenomenon of the rise of China” – said the leader of the project ream Dr. Viktor Kiktenko, head of the Far East Department at the A. Krymsky Institute of Oriental Studies, NASU.
Chapter 1 by Victor Kiktenko reflects on how China is positioning itself today globally and what kind of image of itself it is trying to project, including the current foreign policy thinking, ideas of harmonious development as an alternative to confrontation, multipolarity, and the efforts that China is putting in order for its global rise to be perceived by other nations in a win-win rather than win-lose manner – i.e. as more of an opportunity for enhanced cooperation and development rather than challenge or threat.
Chapter 2 by Viktoria Musiychuk examines with the Vietnamese perceptions of China taking, which reflect essentially what could be described as an asymmetric partnership. Chapter 3 by Serhiy Kapranov is a reflection on the evolution of the Japanese Pan-Asianists views on China (, Senior Fellow). Chapter 4 by Ivanna Otroschenko analyzes the Kazakh perceptions regarding Chinese policies toward ethnic and religious minorities illustrated by the case of Kazakh community in Xinjiang. Finally, the current Nepalese vision of modern China is addressed Chapter 5 by Dmytro Markov.