China's rise to superpower is seemingly a modern phenomenon, but it has a long history.

This book follows China's geopolitical transformation on the world stage, from struggling to defend herself against the British in the Opium Wars, to rivalling the United States for supremacy. What started as a response to Europe's colonial influence has gradually become China's quest to take a leading role on the word stage. But how did this happen? And what kind of actor is China as a global great power?

The answers to these questions lie in how China has been shaped by its changing relationships with major world powers over the last two centuries. Arguing that a series of military defeats in the Opium Wars, Boxer Crisis and Japanese occupation led to a deep-rooted national sense of geopolitical vulnerability, van der Putten shows how this imbalance of power has resulted in Chinese distrust and uncertainty, even after it ceased to be prey to imperialist powers.