Preliminary Material -- War Spreads to the Far East -- Japan Bids for Supremacy in China -- Yuan Shih-ka'i Aspires to be Emperor -- European Containment -- American Compromise -- China Enters the War -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Harvard East Asian Monographs.

This study of World War I diplomacy concerning China covers in detail the outbreak of the war in the Far East; China's attempt to join the allies in 1915; the secret agreements during 1917 between Japan and Great Britain, France, Italy, and Russia; and later negotiations relative to China's entry into the war.

First Published in 1981. Contrary to Chairman Mao's assertion that political power comes from the barrel of a gun, this study contends that political power in China in the early 1920s emanated from the boardrooms of foreign banks. The author's interest in the way financial concerns have shaped foreign policy began with the discovery that the Lloyd George government attempted to influence the American government's policy on the British war debts by offering concessions concerning the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. This study should provide understanding concerning the causes of Chinese bitterness as well as suggest the conflicts experienced by diplomats in balancing public and private interests.

US-China Relations in the 21st Century addresses the bilateral relations of these two nations on an international, domestic, societal and individual level between 1990 and 2005. Peaceful power shifts remain a central dilemma in world politics, since historically power transition from a dominant nation to a challenger has been associated with international wars. This book examines whether China and the US can learn from history and manage a potential power transition peacefully. Zhiqun Zhu selects two important cases of power transitions in history as the background for this study: power rivalry between Great Britain and Germany that led to the First World War the peaceful power transition from Great Britain to the United States. US-China Relations in the 21st Century contributes to the current International Relations theory by proposing a new analytical model on global power transition and providing recommendations for peacefully handling a potential power transition from the US to China in the future. This original and comprehensive study is essential reading for scholars of US and Chinese foreign policy, world politics and international relations.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE The extraordinary and essential story of how China became the powerful country it is today. Even at the high noon of Europe's empires China managed to be one of the handful of countries not to succumb. Invaded, humiliated and looted, China nonetheless kept its sovereignty. Robert Bickers' major new book is the first to describe fully what has proved to be one of the modern era's most important stories: the long, often agonising process by which the Chinese had by the end of the 20th century regained control of their own country. Out of China uses a brilliant array of unusual, strange and vivid sources to recreate a now fantastically remote world: the corrupt, lurid modernity of pre-War Shanghai, the often tiny patches of 'extra-territorial' land controlled by European powers (one of which, unnoticed, had mostly toppled into a river), the entrepôts of Hong Kong and Macao, and the myriad means, through armed threats, technology and legal chicanery, by which China was kept subservient. Today Chinese nationalism stays firmly rooted in memories of its degraded past - the quest for self-sufficiency, a determination both to assert China's standing in the world and its outstanding territorial claims, and never to be vulnerable to renewed attack. History matters deeply to Beijing's current rulers - and Out of China explains why.

This book attempts to explain this aspect of Yüan Shih-k'ai's political power by analysing the relationship between him and Sir John Newell Jordan, British minister at Peking from 1906 to 1920.