One of the most significant changes in the world in the past 40 years is the opening of China to the outside world and its engagement with that world. In the first 20 years of the opening, external forces influenced China’s economy and capital flows, regional (im)balances, internal migration, the interests and power of the bureaucracy, as well as the political authority of local leaders in the coastal areas. More recently, the world is feeling the effects of a rising China which seeks resources, energy and talent from all around the globe and uses its financial wealth to strengthen its influence in the world. This course tracks the opening of China up from 1978 until it joined the WTO (2001), focusing on how the world affected China’s internal development. We then look at various aspects of China’s “going out strategy” — its search for energy, talent, the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as its relations with the United States and the states within the Asia-Pacific region.