The Middle Kingdom is what the Chinese call their country. I had never thought about it very much but it when I did I thought it was a bad translation of a reference to Tolkien’s Middle Earth or some other time reference. It turns out that, according to Michael Auslin in his book The End of the Asian Century, “middle” refers to China’s view of themselves as in a central place among the nations. Kind of like saying: “we are the center of the universe all other nations revolve around us.”