Why China Considers Itself The Center Of The World

"China is not only the world’s most populated country, it also boasts the planet’s oldest civilization — an agricultural-based society formed on the Yellow River 5,000 years ago. During this long period — practically all of recorded human history — China was essentially an isolated country, cut off from other peoples by a vast ocean to the east, jungles to the south, towering mountain ranges to the west and freezing steppes to the north.

It has never formed a lasting, friendly relationship with a distant country. For two millennia the Chinese empire was its own universe, sucking in Korea, Vietnam and other neighbors, while exacting tributes from others, including Japan. Its unbroken culture spread itself over many centuries throughout East Asia, where its influence is manifest in music, dance, paintings, religion, philosophy, architecture, theater, societal structure, administration and, above all, language and literature.

Westerners who, in the second half of the twentieth century, may have seen China as a Third-World, relatively backward nation in terms of crude technology, sparse infrastructure, appalling hygiene, rampant pollution, outdated politics and inadequate communication fell into the trap of misjudging, underestimating and misunderstanding the power and impact of the Chinese people on their neighbors and now, the world at large.

China sees herself as Chung-Kuo — the middle kingdom, the center of the universe and the world’s oldest culture and society. A visitor from the Tang Dynasty (China’s golden age) would still see its legacy intact in the streets and fields of China today..."

at http://www.businessinsider.com/understanding-chinese-perspectives-2014-7#ixzz36zyOUbQp