Greater need for a better understanding exists due to bigger economic, geopolitical importance of China in the world, says leading academic
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Rana Mitter, director of the new Dickson Poon University of Oxford China Centre, believes China should now be seen as a plural noun rather than as a singular noun.
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He hopes the center, now Europe's biggest and which opened on Sept 8, will reflect that modern diversity of the country.
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"China is a whole diversity of different things in terms of culture, identity and direction," he says.
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Mitter, 45, was speaking in the lobby of the Regent Hotel in central Beijing. He was on a trip to the Far East, which also took in a visit to Singapore, just before returning to the UK for the launch.
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He believes one of the roles of the 21-million-pound ($33.7 million; 26.2 million euros) center - of which 10 million pounds was donated by Hong Kong billionaire Dickson Poon - on the grounds of St Hugh's College at Oxford, will be to make clear that China is very much a living place and not some static entity mired in its history.
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Mitter, unassuming despite rapidly emerging as one of the world's leading Sinologists, says the launch of the Oxford center comes at a "historic moment" - when there has never been a greater need for a better understanding of China since the expertise available in the field of Sinology lags behind the fast rise of the country.Â
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