The politics of imagining Asia -- How to explain "China" and its "modernity" : rethinking the rise of modern Chinese thought -- Local forms, vernacular dialects, and the war of resistance against Japan : the "national forms" debate -- The "Tibetan question" East and West : Orientalism, regional ethnic autonomy, and the politics of dignity -- Okinawa and two dramatic changes to the regional order -- Weber and the question of Chinese modernity.