pGe Zhaoguang, an eminent historian of traditional China and a public intellectual, takes on fundamental questions that shape the domestic and international politics of the world's most populous country and its second largest economy. iWhat Is Chinai offers an insider's account that addresses sensitive problems of Chinese identity and shows how modern scholarship about China--whether conducted in China, East Asia, or the West--has attempted to make sense of the country's shifting territorial boundaries and its diversity of ethnic groups and cultures. pGe considers, for example, the ancient concept of itianxiai, or All-Under-Heaven, which assigned supremacy to the imperial court and lesser status to officials, citizens, tributary states, and tribal peoples. Does China's government still operate with a belief in divine rule of All-Under-Heaven, or has it taken a different view of other actors, inside and outside its current borders Responding both to Western theories of the nation-state