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.