For more than 2,000 years, China believed itself to be at the center of the world, with no serious opponents and hermetically sealed off from strangers, all of whom were considered insignificant barbarians. But in the 19th century, the Middle Kingdom was confronted with the concentrated power of the Europeans. A brutal shock that almost destroyed the country. But China did not give up, instead becoming increasingly interested in and capitalizing on new ideas from around the world – from Russia, Germany, Japan and the USA. From the luxurious imperial palaces to the crowded streets of Beijing, from lands devastated by war and famine to the circles of exiled Chinese intellectuals, extraordinary women and men reinvented the country. How did China return in a century and a half to what it had been for two millennia: a leading world power? The three-part documentary searches for answers. (text: arte)