With the rapid rise of China’s economic power and an increasingly stronger Chinese presence on the global stage, the world is also recognizing a fundamental necessity to gain a better understanding of China’s literature, art, history and other facets of this ancient civilization. But the sad fact is that for the past hundred years or so, particularly since late Qing dynasty, that necessity had been greatly hampered by mistrust and even hostility between China and the western world for political, economic, diplomatic and cultural reasons.[Detail]
