China is not an easy country to rule: it is experiencing rapid growth and with it rapid social change. Resources and religion are two of the most difficult of its challenges, and their combination with ethnicity is not unique to China. It may well be one of the major underlying currents of the 21st century and is present throughout Asia—with the Baloch of Pakistan, the Kurds of Iraq and Turkey, and the Timorese of the former island of East Timor in Indonesia, now Timor-Lest. In all these nations, as in China, ethnic identity, often united with religious differences, is driven by the presence of valuable resources to create a nationalism with economic underpinnings. However, as Van Wie Davis shows, with China the outcome is vital, as how it copes with the pressures for good governance with the Asian economic model, treats its ethnic minorities under scrutiny, and gathers resources to fuel its dynamic economy impacts us all.

ELIZABETH VAN WIE DAVIS is Director and Professor of Liberal Arts and International Studies, at the Colorado School of Mines, USA.