- ISBN13: 9780195373196
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Once a sleeping giant, China today is the world’s fastest growing economy–the leading manufacturer of cell phones, laptop computers, and digital cameras–a dramatic turn-around that alarms many Westerners. But in China: Fragile Superpower, Susan L. Shirk opens up the black box of Chinese politics and finds that the real danger lies elsewhere–not in China’s astonishing growth, but in the deep insecurity of its leaders. China’s leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today’s Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think–and what they fear. In this revealing book, readers see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world. Indeed, ever since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, Chinese leaders have been afraid of its own citizens, and this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the U.S. and other nations. In particular, the fervent nationalism of the Chinese people, combined with their passionate resentment of Japan and attachment to Taiwan, have made relations with this country a minefield. The paperback edition features a new preface by the author.
This is an interesting book, but I strongly disagree with the premise. The author argues that the biggest danger is that the U.S. and other countries will “mishandle” China by not understanding its internal politics.
The real danger is that China’s rapid economic growth is putting the country into conflict with the rest of the world over everything from energy and raw materials to market access. With China’s military budget growing at twice the rate of its economy, this is not a time to walk softly with the Chinese. Their unfair trading practices need to be firmly addressed before the U.S. becomes a de facto client state of China.
For a broader view, see my book The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won
Rating: 3 / 5
China may be an economy superpower, definitely not a superpower from the western world view that is to dominate the world. It’s a near impossible for scholars with the Christian culture background to understand the eastern mind. Modern Chinese just want to do business and get rich. However, being a lone big communist nation, China is the supertarget and evil 2nd only to Islam to the west. It’s merely a good excuse for the US to strengthen their self-defined high morality and military force to maintain the world dominance. For that, most books about China written by western scholars can only get one star, Shirk’s is one of them.
Rating: 1 / 5
In China: Fragile Superpower: How China’s Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise (2007), Susan L. Shirk argues that China’s leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel, and that this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the U.S., Japan and Taiwan where potential conflicts may not be avoidable. But what she fails to answer is: throughout the history of China, every regime has always been afraid of its own citizens and top leaders have always been haunted by the fear that their days in power are numbered, what makes it so special now?
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Response by “Electronics Lover”:
The Internet. For the first time in human history, people can speak to each other instantly, sharing ideas. The Chinese people are slowly finding out that the Communist leadership, which has not been communist or even socialist for a long time, is outmoded and serves no purpose whatsoever. China is now linked to the world in a way that it has never experienced in its history. The Chinese leadership should be afraid.
Frank’s reply to “Electronics Lover”:
Wrong. The Internet also helps the Chinese regime spread its idea much more easily and efficiently, and high tech also expedites its control on ideas sharing over the net. But this taken-for-granted “critical point” is not even important. What’s more important is: The idea that the Chinese are thinking what the westerners are thinking is totally outmoded. It’s a shame that so many half-baked “China experts” simply don’t study cultural psychology. Yet a bigger shame is: so many brain-washed and mind-blocked “China specialists” keep on assuming that human nature is everywhere the same (a version of Francis Fukuyama’s “un-altered” human nature). They, of course, fail to realize that the Chinese leadership is not afraid of any democratic naivety any more (like Francis Fukuyama’s “universalization of Western liberal democracy”, with or without the Leninism-style neoconservative belief to push history along the “right” application of power and will). Cut it short: the whole China study in the west is in a dead-end without a bit of self-consciousness. And “China: Fragile Superpower” exemplifies another “successful” attempt in this deed-end.
Rating: 2 / 5
The book was excellent! Susan L. Shirk deftly shows the dilemmas of the Chinese Communist Party. They want to stay in power at all costs. In order to do so they have to do a lot to juggle the interests of various factions in China. Going too far in either direction could mean their destruction.
China: Fragile Superpower does a masterful job of describing the role of the government in a changing China.
Rating: 5 / 5
The main point about this book is that it’s by someone who personally participated in many of the events that she describes. Many of her sources are Chinese with whom she interacted personally, as opposed to books by other Westerneres, although she does mention these, specifically Minxin Pei’s Trapped Transition. She has a very readable style. People may differ with her conclusions but she came to them through her own experience.
Rating: 4 / 5