How have Chinese thinkers viewed American democracy and federalism across more than a century of turbulent change? This book offers a fascinating exploration of Chinese perceptions of the US political system from the late Qing dynasty to the aftermath of Tiananmen and the rise of China as a global power.

Through the voices of remarkable yet overlooked intellectuals—from an imperial consul in San Francisco to the ideologue behind Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream—Brusadelli reveals how the American ‘mirror’ served alternately as inspiration and cautionary tale in China's ongoing struggle to define its own political order.