Gaining Currency

Gaining Currency

Author: Eswar Prasad

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 0190631058

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China's currency, the renminbi, has taken the world by storm. This book documents the renminbi's impressive rise to global prominence in a short period but also shows how much further it has to go before becoming a major international currency. The hype about its inevitable ascendance to global dominance is overblown.


Chinese Money in Global Context

Chinese Money in Global Context

Author: Niv Horesh

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2013-12-18

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 0804788545

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Chinese Money in Global Context: Historic Junctures Between 600 BCE and 2012 offers a groundbreaking interpretation of the Chinese monetary system, charting its evolution by examining key moments in history and placing them in international perspective. Expertly navigating primary sources in multiple languages and across three millennia, Niv Horesh explores the trajectory of Chinese currency from the birth of coinage to the current global financial crisis. His narrative highlights the way that Chinese money developed in relation to the currencies of other countries, paying special attention to the origins of paper money; the relationship between the West's ascendancy and its mineral riches; the linkages between pre-modern finance and political economy; and looking ahead to the possible globalization of the RMB, the currency of the People's Republic of China. This analysis casts new light on the legacy of China's financial system both retrospectively and at present—when China's global influence looms large.


Renminbi Internationalization

Renminbi Internationalization

Author: Barry Eichengreen

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2015-02-11

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0815726120

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A Brookings Institution Press and Asian Development Bank Institute publication Meet the next global currency: the Chinese renminbi, or the "redback." Following the global financial crisis of 2008, China's major monetary policy objective is the internationalization of the renminbi, that is, to create an inter-national role for its currency akin to the international role currently played by the U.S. dollar. Renminbi internationalization is a hot topic, for good reason. It is, essentially, a window onto the Chinese government's aspirations and the larger process of economic and financial transformation. Making the renminbi a global currency requires rebalancing the Chinese economy, developing the country's financial markets and opening them to the rest of the world, and moving to a more flexible exchange rate. In other words, the internationalization of the renminbi is a monetary and financial issue with much broader supra-monetary and financial implications. This book offers a new perspective on the larger issues of economic, financial, and institutional change in what will eventually be the world's largest economy.


The People’s Money

The People’s Money

Author: Paola Subacchi

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2016-11-22

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 0231543263

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Many of the world's major economies boast dominant international currencies. Not so for China. Its renminbi has lagged far behind the pound, the euro, and the dollar in global circulation—and for good reason. China has long privileged economic policies that have fueled development at the expense of the renminbi's growth, and it has become clear that the underpowered currency is threatening China's future. The nation's leaders now face the daunting task of strengthening the currency without losing control of the nation's economy or risking total collapse. How are they approaching this challenge? In The People's Money, Paola Subacchi introduces readers to China's monetary system, mapping its evolution over the past century and, particularly, its transformation since Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978. Subacchi revisits the policies that fostered the country's economic rise while at the same time purposefully creating a currency of little use beyond China's borders. She shows the key to understanding China's economic predicament lies in past and future strategies for the renminbi. The financial turbulence following the global crisis of 2008, coupled with China's ambitions as a global creditor and chief economic power, has forced the nation to reckon with the limited international circulation of the renminbi. Increasing the currency's reach will play a major role in securing China's future.


Yuan Shikai

Yuan Shikai

Author: Patrick Fuliang Shan

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2018-11-14

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0774837810

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Statesman or warlord? Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) has been both hailed as China’s George Washington for his role in the country’s transition from empire to republic and condemned as a counter-revolutionary. In any list of significant modern Chinese figures, he stands in the first rank. Yet Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal sheds new light on the controversial history of this talented administrator, fearsome general, and enthusiastic modernizer. Due to his death during the civil war his actions provoked, much Chinese historiography portrays Yuan as a traitor, a usurper, and a villain. After toppling the last emperor of China, Yuan endeavoured to build dictatorial power and establish his own dynasty while serving as the first president of the new republic, eventually going so far as to declare himself emperor. Drawing on previously untapped primary sources and recent scholarship, Patrick Fuliang Shan offers a lucid, comprehensive, and critical new interpretation of Yuan’s part in shaping modern China.


The Troubled Empire

The Troubled Empire

Author: Timothy Brook

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-03-11

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0674072537

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The Mongol takeover in the 1270s changed the course of Chinese history. The Confucian empireÑa millennium and a half in the makingÑwas suddenly thrust under foreign occupation. What China had been before its reunification as the Yuan dynasty in 1279 was no longer what it would be in the future. Four centuries later, another wave of steppe invaders would replace the Ming dynasty with yet another foreign occupation. The Troubled Empire explores what happened to China between these two dramatic invasions. If anything defined the complex dynamics of this period, it was changes in the weather. Asia, like Europe, experienced a Little Ice Age, and as temperatures fell in the thirteenth century, Kublai Khan moved south into China. His Yuan dynasty collapsed in less than a century, but Mongol values lived on in Ming institutions. A second blast of cold in the 1630s, combined with drought, was more than the dynasty could stand, and the Ming fell to Manchu invaders. Against this backgroundÑthe first coherent ecological history of China in this periodÑTimothy Brook explores the growth of autocracy, social complexity, and commercialization, paying special attention to ChinaÕs incorporation into the larger South China Sea economy. These changes not only shaped what China would become but contributed to the formation of the early modern world.


The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History

The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History

Author: Paul Jakov Smith

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-03-23

Total Pages: 549

ISBN-13: 1684173817

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This volume seeks to study the connections between two well-studied epochs in Chinese history: the mid-imperial era of the Tang and Song (ca. 800-1270) and the late imperial era of the late Ming and Qing (1550-1900). Both eras are seen as periods of explosive change, particularly in economic activity, characterized by the emergence of new forms of social organization and a dramatic expansion in knowledge and culture. The task of establishing links between these two periods has been impeded by a lack of knowledge of the intervening Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). This historiographical "black hole" has artificially interrupted the narrative of Chinese history and bifurcated it into two distinct epochs. This book aims to restore continuity to that historical narrative by filling the gap between mid-imperial and late imperial China. The contributors argue that the Song-Yuan-Ming transition (early twelfth through the late fifteenth century) constitutes a distinct historical period of transition and not one of interruption and devolution. They trace this transition by investigating such subjects as contemporary impressions of the period, the role of the Mongols in intellectual life, the economy of Jiangnan, urban growth, neo-Confucianism and local society, commercial publishing, comic drama, and medical learning.


The World of Khubilai Khan

The World of Khubilai Khan

Author: James C. Y. Watt

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 0300166567

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Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Sept. 28, 2010-Jan. 2, 2011.


Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Author: Guo Jian

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-07-23

Total Pages: 543

ISBN-13: 1442251727

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As the world’s only English-language historical dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), this book offers a comprehensive coverage of major historical figures, events, political terms, and other matters relevant to this unique period of modern Chinese history that had profound influence on social and cultural movements of the world in the 1960s and 1970s. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this important period in Chinese history.


A Paradise Lost

A Paradise Lost

Author: Young-tsu Wong

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2000-12-01

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 9780824823283

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Noted for its magnificent architecture and extraordinary history, the Yuanming Yuan is China's most famous imperial garden. The complex was begun in the early eighteenth century, and construction continued over the next 150 years. While Chinese historians, and many Chinese in general, view the garden as the paramount achievement of Chinese architecture and landscape design, almost nothing is known about the Yuanming Yuan in the West. A Paradise Lost is the first comprehensive study of the palatial garden complex in a Western language. Written in a broad and engaging style, Young-tsu Wong brings "the garden of perfect brightness" to life as he leads readers on a grand tour of its architecture and history. Wong begins by inspecting the garden's physical appearance and its architectural elements. He discusses the origin and evolution of these structures and the aesthetics of their design and arrangement. Throughout he refers to maps and original models of individual buildings and other existing gardens of the Ming-Qing period, including the well-preserved Yihe Yuan and the Chengde Summer Mountain Retreat in Rehe. A special feature of the book is its exploration of the activities and daily life of the royal household.