Master Thesis Proposal Institute of Political Studies Faculty of Social Sciences Charles University in Prague Date: May 26th, 2017 Author: Kristin Templin Supervisor: Michael Romancov E-mail: kct1544@gmail.com E-mail: michael.romancov@gmail.com Phone:+420 604 691 652 Phone: Specialisation: GPS Defense Planned: Notes: The proposal should be 3-5 pages long and sent to martinriegl(et)email.cz. Proposed Topic: Registered in SIS:NO Date of registration: Object: Imperialism, geopolitics, World Order Title: ​Imperialism and the Rise of China Problem: ​ Is the rise of China comparable to the UK or US imperialistic rise? Can we learn anything from their strategy to determine China's future behaviour? Research Questions: What does the behaviour of the British and American empires tell us about the future behaviour of China? Is China's involvement in the international community comparable to the role of previous empires? Goal: ​ To compare and evaluate the foreign policy and involvement of China in the international community to the actions and behaviour of the British and American empires from approximately 1860 - 1965 to determine whether or not this can give insight into China's future international activity. Interest of Problem China's opening and growth in the second half of the 20th century caused a shift in the...

This thesis covers a historical comparison analysis between the Ancient Chinese, British and American Empires in order to compare what activities that China is currently taking in the 21st century that resemble the behaviour of the United Kingdom and United States while they were building their empires. The thesis, using the theoretical concepts of Alfred Mahan and John Mearsheimer and the supporting arguments of Paul Kennedy, focuses on soft power tools including free trade agreements and social networks as well as tangible assets such as infrastructure development, expansion through annexation and/or colonialism and naval capacity. I have included Mahan's theory of sea power as a necessity to achieve supremacy as it corresponds closely with the development of the British and American Empires. I have also used Mearsheimer's theory of offensive realism as it helps explain the US' rise to hegemony and can help provide guidance on China's future strategy. This comparison is then used, along with the opinions of some of the most well-respected geopolitical analysts and historians of the 21st century, in the final chapter of this thesis to address the geopolitical issues associated with China's rise including the United States' response.

Thesis (M. S.)--International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007. / Woodall, Committee Member ; Weber, Committee Member ; Wang, Fei-ling, Committee Chair.

Austro-Hungarian Activities in China, 1894-1914 PhDr. Jan Kočvar My Ph.D. thesis evaluates Austro-Hungarian activities in China between 1894 and 1914, especially their political aspects. I would like to explain the nature of Austro-Hungarian contacts with China and their significance for the Dual Monarchy. The main source for my thesis was constituted by the materials in Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna. Austria-Hungary concluded diplomatic relations with China in 1869, but her position in China remained weak. After the Sino-Japanese War, the Far East became a focus of interest of the Great Powers, and in 1896 was appointed the first Austro-Hungarian Minister to China. During the Scramble for Concessions in late nineties, Austro-Hungarian navy conducted survey of Chinese littoral and contemplated an establishment of a naval base in China, but finally rejected this idea. Austro-Hungarian trade and other interests in China were too insignificant to justify such an action. The peak of Austro-Hungarian presence is connected with the Boxer Uprising of 1900. Austria-Hungary didn't contribute to its genesis. During the uprising, Austro-Hungarian sailors were fighting in besieged Legation Quarter in Beijing, as well as in the metropolitan province of Zhili. Thereafter, Austro-Hungarian diplomacy took...

How and why was imperial power made visually and physically manifest in two similar, contemporaneous megastates - the Roman Principate and Qin-Han China? Framing the Chinese and Roman material within such a question breaks it free from the web of expectations and assumptions in which conventional scholarship almost always situates it. It also builds upon the limited but promising work recently undertaken to study these two empires together in a comparative context. The purpose of this thesis is not to discover similarities and differences for their own sake; but, by discovering similarities and differences, to learn about the nature of imperial authority and prestige in each state. The comparative method compels us to appreciate the contingent - and sometimes frankly curious - nature of visual and artefactual phenomena that have traditionally been taken for granted; and both challenges and empowers us to access higher tier explanations and narratives. Roman expressions of power in visual terms are more public, more historical- biographical, and more political, while Qin-Han images and objects related to imperial authority are generally more private, generic and ritual in their nature. The Roman material emphasizes the notional complicity of large groups of people - the imperial subjects who viewed, crafted and often commissioned these works - in maintaining and defining the emperor's power. If the Han emperor's power was the product of complicity, it was the complicity of a small group of family members and courtiers - and of Heaven. These contrasting sets of power relationships connect to a concerted thematic focus, in the case of Rome, on the individual of the princeps; that is, the individual personage and particular achievements - especially military achievements - of the emperor. This focus is almost always taken for granted in Roman studies, but contrasts profoundly with the thematic disposition of Han artefacts of power: these reflect a concentrated disinterest in imperial personality altogether, emphasizing instead the imperial position; that is, both the office of emperor and a cosmic centrality. While this thesis reveals some arresting contrasts, it also harnesses the dichotomous orientations of Roman and Chinese archaeology to reveal that the conventional understanding of much of this material can be misleading or problematic. Many of the differences in the ways such images are usually interpreted have as much to do with the idiosyncrasies and path dependency of two fields - in short as much to do with the modern viewer - as they do with the images themselves and the traditions that produced them.