Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Ruskola on China from Qing Empire to Nation State

Teemu Ruskola, Emory University School of Law, has posted China in the Age of the World Picture, which is forthcoming in Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law, ed. Florian Hoffman & Anne Orford (Oxford University Press, 2016):
Most scholars of international law approach the topic from the vantage point of the North Atlantic, with China figuring at best as an example — or, more frequently, a counter-example — that illustrates a more central point about the history and character of the international legal order. This chapter insists on placing China at the center of international legal theory. Stated most broadly, it asks: How did the multiethnic Qing empire (1644-1911) on the eastern edge of the Eurasian landmass become “China,” a sovereign nation-state in a world of other, formally equal nation-states?