About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton
“Mann’s colorful and detailed narrative, studded with dozens of vivid anecdotes, reveals how ineptly [we] have managed our ties with the world’s most populous nation.” –The Washington Post Book World
Drawing on hundreds of previously classified documents, scores of interviews, and his own experience, James Mann, former Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau chief, presents the fascinating inside story of contemporary U.S.-China relations.
President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger began their diplomacy with China in an attempt to find a way out of Vietnam. The remaining Cold War presidents saw China as an ally against the Soviet Union and looked askance at its violations of international principles. With the end of communism and China’s continued human rights abuses, the U.S has failed to forge a genuinely new relationship with China. This is the essential story of contemporary U.S./China policy.In the 1960s, China and the United States had no trade relations and no direct diplomatic contacts. At the end of the 20th century, the two nations are major trading partners who regularly swap visits between their heads of state, and the relationship between the world’s most populous nation (with its nuclear weapons and rapidly expanding economy) and the world’s most powerful nation (standard-bearer of democracy and capitalism) has become increasingly vital to world peace. Though it remains fraught with problems, the relationship between China and America has survived such crises as the Tiananmen massacres and confrontations over Taiwan.
James Mann, a foreign policy columnist for the Los Angeles Times, was that newspaper’s bureau chief in Beijing from 1984 to 1987. In the clear language of a veteran journalist, he analyzes the political and historical developments since America’s first overtures to a xenophobic China in the early 1970s. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were interested in China as a counterweight to Soviet Russia; the Clinton administration is interested in China’s markets, with a nod paid to human rights along the way. In this fascinating study, Mann uses his firsthand experience of the events and players to guide us confidently through the twists of a tortuous diplomatic journey, in which China has continually been able to play its opponents–including not only the U.S. and other nations but opposed political factions within America–off one another. –John Stevenson
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Best China read I’ve found in a long time.,
I spend a large percentage of my time reading about and studying China, but I rarely find a book that captivates me like this one did. James Mann is very knowledgeable and insightful about U.S. – China relations. Since he used information newly available (at the time of the book’s publication, in 1998) under the Freedom of Information act, his detailed research goes well beyond what you will find in the news and most books.
The best part about this book, however, is simply how well written it is. It is completely scholarly, yet it reads like a story. It’s rare that I say this about a nonfiction book, but I couldn’t put “About Face” down.
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|half the equation,
this worthy book, all the more fetching to me as a sinologist and former resident of beijing, reflects the very problem it identifies: that china has managed to exempt itself from consistent scrutiny by the united states in the promise of delivering a profitable and strategic relationship. although much of the world was apparently ignorant of the cultural revolution’s carnage as it went on (1966-76), henry kissinger’s comments about its irrelevance to the ‘realpolitik’ of diplomacy are chilling. in a world that is still sorting out who knew what and when about hitler’s death camps and still shudders at his photographs with prominent personalities, the real shock for me is simply accepting america’s historic breakthrough with china without being shocked by the image of president nixon in the company of chairman mao. it was not until the international media found itself deep in the wound of the tian-an men massacre that the doubting thomases were convinced of china’s dark capabilities. in this book and through no fault of its own, china is a scrim, lacking the same depth of narrative which is offered on the american stage. i would hope that either mr. mann, a keen observer, indeed, or another, undertakes an exercise which relates diplomatic masque to the folks on the ground in china. i hate to dwell on the past; but, that’s what history is all about.
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|Journalistic View Of Recent US-China History,
The United States relationship with Communist China has been an exceedingly curious thing over the years. From the time of the Chinese Communist revolution when the Nationalist Chinese were driven from the mainland to modern day Taiwan until Richard Nixon’s visit in the early 70′s we refused to recognize them as a country. We ignored the vast bulk of the country and recognized only the Nationalists in Taiwan as the legitimate Chinese government because although the Nationalists were not democratic they at least were not communist.
Not only did we not recognize them we fought them in Korea and it is thought that we killed over 1,000,000 of their soldiers. The fighting there was so bitter that it appeared at times our own troops might be completely wiped out and killing of the wounded and prisoners was taking place on both sides at times. Then in Vietnam the Chinese backed the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge elements as well as the Laotian communist insurgents. In short they were on the other side in conflicts that killed over 80,000 of our soldiers and in which we killed millions of communist soldiers, civilians, etc. They were one of the great powers involved in causing the conflicts because it was the communists who invaded in both conflicts not the other way around. In the 1960′s the Chinese hordes were seen as a great threat to western civilization it was they after all who drove McArther back to the demarcation line in Korea (suffering staggering losses including the son of chairman Mao). They were second only to the Soviet Union on the list of threats to the U.S. and this was only exacerbated when they exploded their first nuclear weapon.
Isn’t it strange that although the government today is the same government that existed back then only with different faces and that we are now such good allies when in some respects little has changed? Why this sudden about face with a country that had been our enemy prior to the Nixon mission and who has failed to change significantly from what they were before. For all the economic reforms taking place in today’s China the government more closely resembles Fascism than Communism and neither of them are particularly compatible with western democracy. Why do we cut them so much slack and why he change? That’s what the book is about.
Consecutive administrations since the Nixon mission reestablished relations with the mainland have consistently sought to curry favor with the communist administration in Beijing. Initially it made sense in the respect that it drove a wedge of sorts between the “communist giants” and weakened their united front. With the decline of the Soviets and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent disintegration of the USSR that followed that rationale no longer held up. Yet to this very day we continue to treat our relationship with Communist China as a “special friend” situation politically.
We do this despite the fact that they have been directly implicated in practicing espionage against our military industrial complex, computer industry, and nuclear development agencies (in the 1990′s). We do this despite the fact that they are thought to be spending $80 billion annually on armaments when they claim $20 billion and the major expressed military objective is to counter the hegemony of the US. We do this despite a steady track record of doing and saying very unfriendly things most recently the incident with the ramming of our spy plane and then holding our personnel for a period of time. We do this despite the fact that our concepts of human rights are directly opposed to one another and incompatible (we believe in the rights of human beings to choose their own destiny, political and religious freedoms etc. Their definition of human rights and freedom is quite literally free housing, medical, etc all provided and controlled by the government). China is one of the countries systematically undermining the western concept of the value of human life because they consider human being expendable and always have (hence the human waves sent against our overwhelming firepower in Korea that still knocked us back at a terrible price).
The book looks at these questions and is somewhat critical of U.S. policy to some extent because we have helped a potentially hostile country survive with a repressive military regime in place that is not reluctant about slaughtering it’s own citizenry in their hundreds if not thousands (Tianamen Square). Saving face in Asia is more important element than it is in west but are we being disingenuous in taking the insults and transgressions of the Chinese Communist government lightly and will it come back to haunt us later in the century?
In short there are disturbing aspects to the relationship and to some extent it appears we are in bed with the devil on this one at this time.
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