China is a huge country, with a very long history, and an increasingly global influence. The implications of its domestic and foreign policies are far-reaching. Tracking everything China is or does is a mammoth task and most observers tend to do so by focusing on a specific research area or a specific angle. I am not different in this regard.

The perspective I have used to look at China follows my professional story of the last few years. It is based on an underlying claim, which might well be the most important statement in this book: it is not possible, I argue, to study modern and contemporary China in isolation from its relationship with the West. This is because China's struggles and successes over the last two centuries are closely linked to western policy towards China – at the same time, the rise of a western-led global economy, and the end of the Cold War might not have been possible without China. Studying China through the lenses of its relationship with the West means approaching this subject with a pragmatic – strategic – logic, rather than for the sake of knowing more about China.

This is the perspective that I have developed over the last four years and that has informed this book. From an academic point of view, my interest in China began with my PhD at the Department of European and International Studies, King's College London where I completed my thesis on US–China relations. More specifically, my objective was to analyse the foreign policy of the Obama administration towards China, applying a Marxist theory of imperialism, which involved looking at American grand strategy from a critical perspective. Between 2017 and 2018, between the final stage of my PhD and my first year of a full-time job, I realized I wanted to focus more on the Chinese perspective of the relationship. First, when studying the logic of the Washington Consensus, I realized that I needed a better appreciation of what was behind American disappointment towards China. I found an answer to this question, eventually, by exploring in depth the symbiotic – nationalistic – relationship that exists in the PRC between the state and society, in particular between the state and the strategic industries.