Prior to the Opium War China was central to Pacific Asia, but it was not in control of its neighborhood. The mobility of the various nomadic groups threatened China’s northern and western frontiers, and Vietnam’s successful resistance to Ming annexation set a southern boundary-stone. While China’s centrality was not hegemonic, its location, demographic preponderance, and artisanal production made China the center of regional attention. Conversely, because of China’s demographic and production centrality, China was more interested in defending what it had than in imperial adventures abroad. Its foreign policy was one of controlling exposure in relationships—thin connectivity. By the Ming Dynasty this evolved into the tribute system, whose core was a ritualized exchange of deference by the neighbor for acknowledgement of autonomy by China.

In the nineteenth century, the Chinese Empire – the longest-lasting empire in human history – was the largest economy on earth with a decent per capita GDP level. But it shrank rapidly after its collapse. Since the founding of the PRC in 1949, China had been one of the poorest economies in the world until the post-Mao reform, which has enjoyed high growth for three decades. But a sustained slowing down since 2009 reminds us of the trend of the Soviet economy since the mid-1970s.