China's search for the future: A genealogical approach

•Genealogy of China's futures used to understand how social dialogue and reality change as epistemes change.•Unique use of the futures triangle as a methodology to map dominant, emerging and alternative images of the future.•Macrohistorical trends of cyclical or linear time examined to provide insights to the shape and structure of the future.

This paper is a dialectical inquiry, presenting a genealogy of, China futures discourses and visions from ancient times through to the, present. It uses both structural and macrohistorical based approaches. The identified worldviews are placed in their broader historical, epistemes; asked why change has occurred, how it fits within patterns of, history and what kind of futures are offered. It is unique in that I use, the futures triangle methodology to discuss the “pulls” of the future in, each historical era with the corresponding “pushes” of the present and, “weights” of the past. The article concludes with a theory of futures in, Chinese history and looks at which philosophies are likely to play a role, in the possible futures of China. The aim is to highlight which visions, and images have been victorious is affecting the present and influencing, the future.