The Geopolitics of China
China is a land shaped by its history; a country that has suffered great calamities and more than anything else, has grown. China “boasts a civilization at least three thousand years old” (Hutton, 2007) and is a home for more than 1.3billion people. It covers over 5,000 kilometres of land in East Asia, and is surrounded by powerful neighbours – Vietnam, India, North Korea, Russia and more. While Northern China is subarctic, South China experiences sub-tropical climates. The Eastern side of the country, following the East China Sea, as well as the Yellow Sea, is comprised of mainly low lands; China is much more heavily industrialised towards the north-east (Hutton, 2007), whereas, the West hosts more mountains. Most countries are historically known for using their boarders and coast lines as defensive mechanisms, conversely though, China is known for tactfully moving in-land and using its terrain for defence; which form up to two thirds of China’s land (Gaddis, 2005). Will Hutton argues that China has “burst back on to the world scene in a manner parcelled in scale and speed in world history only by the rise of the United States.” It first endured a “century of humiliation” (Lecture). Opium Wars dominated China in the 1840s until 1860, after which the Taiping Rebellion – a civil war, revolting against the Quing Dynasty took place, closely followed by the Boxer Uprising – a rebellion provoked by imperialist expansion (Gaddis, 2005). Looking at this, we can see that China has been closely linked to war throughout the last century. More recently, it had a major role, following the former Communist Soviet Union in the Cold war, where China endured crises by both foreign and internal, such as Mao Zeodong’s attempts to bring China forward in the world, and the Tiananmen Square massacre. Throughout the Cold War, “China conveyed the appearance,