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Challenging monolithic modern narratives about 'Chinese science', Daniel Patrick Morgan examines the astral sciences in China c.221 BCE-750 CE as a study in the disunities of scientific cultures and the narratives by which ancients and moderns alike have fought to instil them with a sense of unity. The book focuses on four unifying 'legends' recounted by contemporary subjects: the first two, redolent of antiquity, are the 'observing of signs' and 'granting of seasons' by ancient sage kings; and the other two, redolent of modernity, involve the pursuit of 'accuracy' and historical 'accumulation' to this end. Juxtaposing legend with the messy realities of practice, Morgan reveals how such narratives were told, imagined, and re-imagined in response to evolving tensions. He argues that, whether or not 'empiricism' and 'progress' are real, we must consider the real effects of such narratives as believed in and acted upon in the history of astronomy in China.

At the end of the 15th century, Portugal was given the oversight (Padroado) of all Catholic missions in Asia. The Society of Jesus played a major role in this enterprise of evangelization, which in Jesuit hands led to the transmission of major elements of European mathematical sciences to East Asia. The essays in this volume present important new data and analysis on the extent to and ways in which Jesuit scientific culture and Portuguese policies regarding education, trade and mission shaped the reception of \"Western learning\" in China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam in the early modern period.

The recent conflict between indigenous Uyghurs and Han Chinese demonstrates that Xinjiang is a major trouble spot for China, with Uyghur demands for increased autonomy, and where Beijing’s policy is to more firmly integrate the province within China. This book provides an account of how China’s evolving integrationist policies in Xinjiang have influenced its foreign policy in Central Asia since the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, and how the policy of integration is related to China’s concern for security and its pursuit of increased power and influence in Central Asia. The book traces the development of Xinjiang - from the collapse of the Qing empire in the early twentieth century to the present – and argues that there is a largely complementary relationship between China’s Xinjiang, Central Asia and grand strategy-derived interests. This pattern of interests informs and shapes China’s diplomacy in Central Asia and its approach to the governance of Xinjiang. Michael E. Clarke shows how China’s concerns and policies, although pursued with vigour in recent decades, are of long-standing, and how domestic problems and policies in Xinjiang have for a long time been closely bound up with wider international relations issues. 1. China and the Integration of Xinjiang: The History of a Permanent Provocation 2. Xinjiang from the Qing Conquest to the Republic of China, 1760-1949 3. Completing the Forbears Behest: The Resurgence of the State’s Integrationist Project under the PRC, 1949-1976 4. ‘Crossing the River by Feeling for the Stones’: Xinjiang in the ‘Reform’ Era, 1976-1990 5. Reaffirming Chinese Control in the Wake of Central Asia’s Transformation, 1991-1995 6. Biding Time and Building Capabilities: Xinjiang and Chinese Foreign Policy in Central Asia, 1996-2001 7. Walking on Three Legs: Balancing China’s Xinjiang, Central Asia and Grand Strategy Derived Interests, 2002-2009 8. The Integration of Xinjiang: Securing China’s ‘Silk Road’ to Great Power Status? \"Overall, Clarke has done a wonderful job of piecing together a political history of Xinjiang’s strategic importance for Chinese policy in Central Asia. The achievement of Xinjiang and China’s Rise is in Clarke’s analysis, which is intelligent and comprehensive and offers a new perspective for framing Xinjiang in the larger global dynamics of contemporary politics.\" - Kristian Petersen, Ph.D., Gustavus Adolphus College; Journal of International and Global Studies \"Clarke's book is indispensible for anyone interested China's ethnic relations, state formation, and foreign policy, especially during the communist regime. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.\" -L. Teh, CHOICE (February 2012) Michael E. Clarke is a Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, Australia. He is the co-editor of China, Xinjiang and Central Asia: History, Transition and Crossborder Interaction into the 21st Century (also published by Routledge).

\"A history of the development of mathematical astronomy in China, from the late third century BCE, to the early 3rd century CE - a period often referred to as 'early imperial China'. It narrates the changes in ways of understanding the movements of the heavens and the heavenly bodies that took place during those four and a half centuries, and tells the stories of the institutions and individuals involved in those changes. It gives clear explanations of technical practice in observation, instrumentation, and calculation, and the steady accumulation of data over many years - but it centers on the activity of the individual human beings who observed the heavens, recorded what they saw, and made calculations to analyze and eventually make predictions about the motions of the celestial bodies\"-- Provided by publisher.

In Imperial-Time-Order, Qian offers an engagingly written critical study on a persistent historical way of thinking, centered on notions of time, morality, and empire, in modern China.

On 12 May 2008 at 14:28 LT great earthquake (M=8.0) occurred at Wenchuan (31.00° N, 103.40° E), China. The hourly values of foF2 are analyzed over ten ionospheric observatories: Haikou (20.00° N, 110.33° E), Kunming (25.00° N, 102.70° E), Guangzhou (20.00° N, 113.70° E), Chongqing (29.50° N, 106.40° E), Lhasa (29.63° N, 91.17° E), Lanzhou (36.07° N, 103.87° E), Beijing (40.00° N, 116.30° E), Urumqi (43.75° N, 87.63° E), Chuangchun (43.83° N, 125.30° E) and Manzhouli (49.60° N, 117.45° E). With a new factor, effective sunspot number Reff, the results show that there were giant positive disturbances of foF2 around the epicentral zone on 9 May, 3 days prior to the earthquake. Our results indicate that the observed positive ionospheric disturbances were most possibly associated with the imminent earthquake and the new analytic method has good prospects in practice.

This book presents a comprehensive examination of Chinese consumer behaviour and challenges the previously dichotomous interpretation of the consumption of Western and non-Western brands in China. The dominant position is that Chinese consumers are driven by a desire to imitate the lifestyles of Westerners and thereby advance their social standing locally. The alternative is that consumers reject Western brands as a symbolic gesture of loyalty to their nation-state. Drawing from survey responses and in depth interviews with Chinese consumers in both rural and urban areas, Kelly Tian and Lily Dong find that consumers situate Western brands within select historical moments. This embellishment attaches historical meanings to Western brands in ways that render them useful in asserting preferred visions of the future China. By highlighting how Western brands are used in contests for national identity, Consumer-Citizens of China challenges the notion of the \"patriot’s paradox\" and answers scholars’ questions as to whether Chinese nationalists today allow for a Sino-Western space where the Chinese can love China without hating the West. Consumer-Citizens of China will be of interest to students and scholars of business studies, Chinese and Asian Studies and Political Science. Kelly Tian is Professor of Marketing and holds the Anderson Chair of Business at New Mexico State University. Lily Dong is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Chapter One IMAGINING CHINA, IMAGINING BRANDS: Foreign Brands as Global Brands from the Imagined West; Western and Domestic Brands As Materials for Realizing an Imagined Future China; Obscured State Influence and Consumer Autonomy; Organization of the Book Chapter Two RETHINKING POPULAR NOTIONS OF CHINESE CONSUMERS’ MOTIVES FOR RESPONDING TO WESTERN BRANDS: The Emulative Motive For Western Brand Consumption; The Patriotic Motive for Rejecting Western Brands; Rethinking the Primacy of the Emulative Motive for Consuming Western Brands; Rethinking \"Consumer Nationalism\" as Synonymous with Western Brand Boycotting; Chinese Consumers as Active Meaning Makers Chapter Three HIGHLIGHTED MOMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF BRANDED GOODS IN CHINA: The Emergence of Branded Goods in Late Imperial China; Branded Goods in Semi-colonial China of the Early 20 th Century; Branded Goods Since Gaige Kaifang- China’s Economic Reform; Relevance of These Past Moments to Present-Day Brand Meanings Chapter Four FOREIGN BRANDS IN CHINA AS GLOBAL BRANDS FROM THE IMAGINED WEST: Overview of Research Method; Data Collection Sites; Our Data Collection Methods; Foreign Brands as Western Brands With Distinguishing Characteristics Chapter Five CHINESE NATIONAL NARRATIVES AND THE MEANINGS OF WESTERN BRANDS: The West as Experiential Venue, Western Brands as Instruments of Freedom; The West as Imperialist Oppressor, Western Brands as Instruments of Domination; The West as Subjugated, Conquered Western Brands as Redemption; The West as Economic Partner, Western Brands as Instruments of Economic Progress Chapter Six NATIONAL NARRATIVES IN IMAGINATIVE PROCESSING OF WESTERN BRAND PROMOTIONS: Imagined Consumption; Western Brand Producers’ Efforts to Evoke Consumption Fantasies; Individual Psychological Processes of Enlivening Consumption Fantasies; Narratives and Imagined Identity Transformations From Western Brand Consumption; The Influence of East-West Narratives On the Processing of Western Brands Promotions; Discussion Chapter Seven CITIZEN-CONSUMERS IN AN AGE OF GLOBALIZATION

The domestication of cattle is generally accepted to have taken place in two independent centres: around 10,500 years ago in the Near East, giving rise to modern taurine cattle, and two millennia later in southern Asia, giving rise to zebu cattle. Here we provide firmly dated morphological and genetic evidence for early Holocene management of taurine cattle in northeastern China. We describe conjoining mandibles from this region that show evidence of oral stereotypy, dated to the early Holocene by two independent ¹⁴C dates. Using Illumina high-throughput sequencing coupled with DNA hybridization capture, we characterize 15,406 bp of the mitogenome with on average 16.7-fold coverage. Phylogenetic analyses reveal a hitherto unknown mitochondrial haplogroup that falls outside the known taurine diversity. Our data suggest that the first attempts to manage cattle in northern China predate the introduction of domestic cattle that gave rise to the current stock by several thousand years.

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