China's rapid economic development should not be seen as following an imperialistic model, a leading Asian historian said yesterday.
Speaking at a lunch organised by the Lions Club of Metropolitan Hong Kong, Professor Wang Gungwu, chairman of Singapore's Institute of East Asian Political Economy, explained that the concept of a 'China threat' did not exist.
He said the West was wrong to use its own historical development pattern to predict the rise of China.
He said imperialism did not exist in Chinese history and it was inappropriate to compare the traditional Chinese tributary system with the Western concept of imperialism.
Professor Wang said that the concept of 'Greater China' was scary to other countries because it was being misunderstood as 'uniting all the Chinese around the world together'.
But the concept of a combined economic force of Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland brought uneasiness to Western countries and also countries in Eastern Asia.
