Throughout much of history, imperial China has exhibited a seemingly capricious relationship with the sea. At times, it has welcomed commerce and travel across its vast waters with open arms, yet at others, it has sought to completely cordon off the littoral and the waters beyond. This intermittent approach has fostered a maritime community that, over time, has become increasingly estranged from the dominating Confucian society. Consequently, this has led to behaviours among the coastal residents that pose challenges for those attempting to govern them, with each influencing the other in turn.

In Shaping the Blue Dragon, Ronald Po examines China's relationship with the maritime world from the Ming through the Qing by following the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people engaging with the blue domain. Pirates, cartographers, administrators, naval generals, maritime writers, emperors, visionaries, and travellers. Most of their stories are unheard in the Anglophone community. Despite the range of their backgrounds and expertise, their cumulative lives were all bounded to the sea. They bared their own souls and mirrored their own logics and reflections in their actions, yet in doing so their characters, identities, and life histories were largely shaped by a maritime China that was in transition between the fourteenth and early nineteenth centuries.