Here are is a quick video (both in English, and Mandarin subtitled) in which I asked Dr Rana Mitter of Oxford University’s Oriental Studies Institute about China’s view of its role in the world:
And a follow-up of Dr Mitter talking about his first trip to China in the 1980s, back when a foreigner in Guangzhou was still something which turned heads:
Alec Ash
I studied Mandarin in Beijing, where I began writing this blog in the Olympic summer of 2008