This blog is an effort to make some sense of the world, and in particular of how China’s transformation has altered our lives immeasurably in the last four decades. 

Living with the Dragon will focus on the key geopolitical and economic shifts that have underpinned changes in China, and examine their impact on the wider world, focused on Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region – and more widely.

This blog will provide a platform for discussion of “hard” issues such as the Chinese economy, the role of the Chinese Communist Party, Sino-US relations, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the overseas Chinese community.

The blog will also examine how best to respond nimbly to this changing world, particularly as tensions rise, geopolitics puts a crimp on business and reins in globalization, and as China enters an economic slowdown. 

The Chinese people are deeply aware of their history, though, and so few people in the west have much grasp of this lengthy story. 

As such, the blog will also seek to embed developments in their historical context, and hence encourage a more nuanced approach to China.

The plan, then, is to explore key moments in Chinese history too, such as the Three Kingdoms, the 8^th century An Lushan rebellion, the 11^th Century Confucian revival, the Ming dynasty’s rise and fall, the Manchu conquest, the Opium Wars, the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, and the chaos of the Maoist years.   

Equally important is culture, and so the blog will also discuss broader issues, such as the pleasures and challenges of the Chinese language, the philosophies underpinning Chinese life, aspects of literature, film and art, and the delights of Chinese cooking, amongst other issues.   

Why?

This blog is a personal mission. 

I am a westerner, who has spent years studying Chinese politics, business, language, and culture, in the broadest sense.  

I have worked in journalism, business, and analysis, and have travelled around Asia for years.  It is very much what I have done with my life, so far. 

I have come away with a deep interest in all that is China, but just as much confusion. I am fascinated by Greater China, but will always be an outsider, and am conscious of how little I really know. 

I struggle to understand a civilisation that can encompass the Sanxingdui bronzes, Daoism and Confucianism, the Qin Emperor’s Burning of the Books and Burying of the Scholars (焚書坑儒), Guan Yu, Li Bai’s poetry, Zhu Xi’s minimalist Confucianism, Zhu Yuanzhang’s brutality, Mapo tofu, Sun Wukong (the Monkey King), Commissoner Lin, simplified characters, dialects that in other countries would be languages, Maoist struggle sessions, Hong Kong’s business culture, and so much more.    

I thus hope to use the blog to gain a better understanding of some of these issues.  Ultimately, though, I hope the blog will help me work out where we have been, and where we are going – and, most importantly, how better to understand each other.