Editor's Note: This net assessment addresses China's shifting place in the world and is informed by various academic sources, particularly the work of China scholar Dr. Richard Baum in his lecture series "The Fall and Rise of China" for The Great Courses. China's Geographic Core Geography is the foundation of China's historical and contemporary challenges and significantly informs its governing style. The fertile land between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, protected in the West by mountains and in the East by the sea, has been the cradle of Chinese civilization and of pre-civilizational advanced neolithic societies for at least five millennia, long before there was a unified Chinese state.