Western Perspectives on the People's Republic of China

摘要

As Colin Mackerras argues in this book, there is a longstanding tendency in the West to paint China as something "exotic" (with all the stereotypical baggage that entails). Sometimes this construction encompasses admiration for "China's difference," but more often than not it has signified contempt, with difference equating to "inferiority." In his seminal Western Images of China (Oxford University Press, 1989), Mackerras has also convincingly shown how "our" image of China says as much about "us" as it does about "them."