Gary Sigley

Gary Sigley is a Professor of Cultural Geography in the Faculty of Geographical Science at Beijing Normal University. His past research has focused on the cultural heritage and heritage routes of tea in Southwest China, and in particular the Ancient Tea Horse Road. This has been expanded to include researching the growth of tea heritage across China and recent Chinese government initiatives in the field of “tea diplomacy”. Gary is also developing a project on analysing how “China” has been interpreted within Western discourse during recent times of geopolitical transformations. The focus here is on Western “liberal eschatology” and “apocalyptic modernity”.

Recent articles by Gary Sigley

China and the apocalypse: How the West reinvents the end of history

China and the apocalypse: How the West reinvents the end of history

After China entered the period of reform and openness in the 1980s, Western liberalism, embracing a form of apocalyptic modernity, adhered to the fantasy that China would become like us. What it meant in fact was that China would become like us but be subservient to us. If China was not going to become like us [and be subservient to us] it had to be put in its place. It is time to call this out.

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