Abstract:

During the epoch from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century a China-centered system encompassing tributary-trade relations in East Asia constituted the picture of"first globalization", and provided as well a framework coordinating international political and economic relatins. This is a pattem deserving our serious considerations. Through a survey of Chinese experience in the twentieth- century course of war, revolution and globalization, we may have a better understanding of China's place and fu- ture in East Asian tremendous changes and global developments during last decades of the twentieth cen- tury.

Key words: globalization, tributtary-trade system, intemational order