Superpower Interrupted Quotes

“control barbarians.”37 The Xiongnu led the Chinese to believe in a distinction between China and the rest of the world. The physical wall separating China from the northern steppe was matched by an intellectual wall the Chinese erected between their society and others. Who would and would not be invited into the Chinese world changed from century to century, based on the ebb and flow of China’s power and confidence. Like a perpetually swinging pendulum, Chinese attitudes toward foreigners would alternate between great openness and paranoid xenophobia. Needless to”
― Michael Schuman, Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World

“Being Chinese, from this viewpoint, was a matter of culture, not genetics. Anyone could become “Chinese” by adopting “Chinese” learning, moral values, and rituals. Once exposed to Chinese life, the barbarians would doubtlessly perceive its merits and quickly adopt it. No less a figure than Confucius believed it so. In one passage in the Analects, Confucius remarked that he’d like to live among the “Nine Barbarian Tribes” of the east. A”
― Michael Schuman, Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World

“The Chinese often didn’t distinguish very carefully between the different types of “barbarians.” They were usually referred to by generic labels: the Di in the west, the Rong in the north, the Man in the south, and the Yi in the east.”
― Michael Schuman, Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World