China Rising Again

By Charles Hayford -- Library Journal, 8/15/2006

Napoleon is widely quoted as saying “Let China sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world.” Though there is no evidence he ever said it (and no, you can’t see the Great Wall from outer space), the observation is still cogent. The key challenge in world politics today is for the United States and China, neither of which was a world power a century ago, to deal with each other. After World War I, the victorious Allies disastrously failed to accommodate the rising powers, especially Germany, Italy, and Japan. Japan’s strategy was at first cooperative, then revengefully militarist, and, after defeat in World War II, again cooperative. China and India, as today’s rising powers, will not merely join the world system but transform it.

The books reviewed here are interestingly different from those chosen by this reviewer and a colleague for the Library Journal piece “Sixty Good Books on China” on the occasion of President Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972. Then, the books listed were largely devoted to the basic history, geography, and politics of China, subjects now significantly covered by most libraries. Then, none of the American authors listed had lived in contemporary China; all the authors below have lived there and constantly interact with Chinese colleagues and friends.

The new books below fall into several categories. First, there are those by journalists (James Kynge and John Pomfret) who cut their teeth in China in the 1980s and witnessed China’s economic boom and political twists and turns. The second category, written by scholars and analysts, may be subdivided into books aimed at general readers interested in foreign policy (Morton Abramowitz and Stephen W. Bosworth, John Copper, Rollie Lal), one concerned with global entrepreneurship (Reed E. Hundt), and those targeted to academics and serious general readers who want full strength theoretical analysis (Daniel Lynch, James Peck). With their varying views and styles, all can be recommended to public and academic libraries seeking to acquire current books on this important and volatile region, but more specific recommendations follow each title.

The authors, both former ambassadors and State Department officials, present a lucid policy briefing for interested general readers. First they elegantly summarize America’s successes in East Asia following World War II, and then they explain how the sun is setting on American domination and is rising for China and Japan. They explore policy alternatives for American power when regionalism is more important than individual country-to-country relations. They also ask, Does democracy count in East Asia? Highly recommended for medium and larger libraries.

A careful yet prolific scholar, Copper (international studies, Rhodes Coll.; The Taiwan Political Miracle) provides detailed background covering the last several decades in relation to an increasingly possible showdown between the United States and China over Taiwan. He analyzes the damage to U.S.–China relations from Tiananmen Square, the missile defense issue, and the Taiwan elections in which the Nationalist Party lost. He points out the danger when leaders on all sides pander to domestic groups; Taiwanese politicians “play with fire” by defying Beijing and expecting American support. Recommended for large libraries and special collections.

Hundt (former chair, under President Clinton, Federal Communications Commission) is a brainy and literate Silicon Valley entrepreneur and board member of major world communications companies. Vivid case studies, such as of AOL, Google, and Netscape, as well as insightful sketches of Chinese enterprises, dramatize his argument that risk-taking leaders in the 1990s rekindled the spent boom by developing Information Technology (IT). Then came China’s “Communist mercantilism”—which simply bought or pirated these new technologies—and attempts at derailment by America. Hundt says America must reinvent its historic culture of entrepreneurship and embrace global technologies or lose the American dream. Highly recommended for business and current events collections in larger libraries.

Kynge (former China bureau chief, Financial Times) uses interviews and on-the-ground reporting first to bring to life the 1980s development strategies of China as a “hungry nation”: constant innovation, piracy, and relentless pursuit of market share. Successful marketing and investment in Europe soon led to a “great leap” into American markets. But Kynge also portrays the downside for China: drained natural resources, environmental catastrophe, and the collapse of social trust. The book ends with two speculative but solidly grounded chapters, “Communism vs. Democracy” and “Can We Be Friends?” Highly recommended for the current/international affairs shelves of all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/06.]

Will China and India promote their national interests by competition, by cooperation, or by going to war? In order to see how people define their “national interest,” Lal (RAND Corp.), a political scientist with expertise on Asian security, terrorism, and organized crime, goes beyond the received government word to ask citizens and leaders in China and India their perceptions of the basic needs, accomplishments, and aims of each country. The structure of her book is formal and the tone impersonal. Sections, almost like entries in a reference work, compare and evaluate Chinese and Indian responses. But the effect is bracing, leading the reader to browse and speculate. Recommended for specialist collections.

In this significant and clearly articulated study, Lynch (international relations, Univ. of Southern California) asks if the success of democracy in Thailand and Taiwan heralds democratization in other countries. The People’s Republic of China is the key challenge to the optimists (the case of Burma was dropped as Lynch could not gain entry). Lynch’s strong theoretical analysis combines with interviews with men and women in each country to find out what they actually feel. While not a pessimist, he does not see democratization in China as parallel to the two successes, perhaps because in the 1980s a key opportunity to democratize was missed. Recommended for all larger collections.

Peck (director, U.S.–China Book Publication Project), like Hillary Rodham Clinton, began his political life as an Illinois conservative Republican in the 1960s but was radicalized by the Vietnam War. The present book, based on close readings of American internal government documents from the 1940s to the present (some newly declassified), develops his radical critique of American power. Peck systematically relates America’s Asia policies to the military security state and the need to control Asian rivals; the power that will shake the world is the United States, not China. This critical intellectual history of policy debates in military and security agencies over the last 50 years is suitable for all larger libraries and specialist collections.

Pomfret (former Beijing bureau chief, Washington Post) left Stanford University in the early 1980s to study Chinese in one of China’s leading universities. He stayed in touch with his Chinese classmates as they came of age, and like Peter Hessler in Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present, he deploys their individual stories and his own coming of age and immersion in Chinese culture to tell the larger story—almost as a memoir—of a China itself coming of age. His writing is steady and frank, wittily rueful over China’s follies and his own, appreciative, and wonderfully readable. His long-term commitment to China affords insights into the contradictions of economic boom, social uncertainties, and a political system that, yes, is changing but probably not fast enough. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/06.]