How did modern China come into being? What were the processes that caused the collapse of imperial China and to the construction of China as a modern nation state? Is China a modern nation state? What were the drastic changes that China endured during the past two centuries, and what brought them about? Where does China stand today? We will discuss transformations in China’s political thought, modernization a-la-China, changes in the self perception of the Chinese during the period since 1800, and China’s status in Asia and the world. We will further examine the heritage of the Qing dynasty, and try to ascertain the