About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton [Hardcover]

James Mann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 1998

This is the fascinating inside story of the people, forces, politics and diplomacy that have shaped contemporary relations between the United States and China. James Mann, the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times from 1984 to 1987, draws on hundreds of newly uncovered government documents, scores of interviews and his own experiences in writing this superb investigative history.

Mann begins with an account of the process by which Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger first courted and built up ties to China's Communist government in an attempt to find a way out of the war in Vietnam. At first, the aim was to create flexibility for the United States in dealing with both the Soviet Union and China; but gradually, as the 1970s progressed, the opening to China took on a life and momentum of its own. During the Carter and Reagan administrations, American leaders saw China as an ally against the Soviet Union, and a tacit understanding emerged that the United States would not subject China to the standards and principles applied to other countries. We are shown how subsequent administrations failed to construct a new framework for dealing with China--President Bush tried to preserve the old American relationship with Beijing, and President Clinton has been unsuccessful in his efforts to create something new.

Mann also reveals little-known episodes in the history of U.S.-China relations: that the price of  Kissinger's first visit to China in 1971 was a secret promise that the United States would never support independence for Taiwan; how the United States and China worked together in guerrilla operations in Afghanistan and Cambodia; how the movement to restrict China's trade benefits originated and how Bill Clinton came to support these efforts during his1992 presidential campaign. The disclosure of new information, coupled with Mann's incisive and compelling analysis, makes About Face a work that is sure to shed light on the current debate on the United States' relations with China.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

From Publishers Weekly

The Cold War may be over, but its effects live on in the United States's desire to seek close ties with China. That's one of the main threads that Mann (Beijing Jeep), a Los Angeles Times reporter, skillfully pulls through his entertaining history of Sino-American relations since Henry Kissinger's fateful 1971 mission to Beijing. Mann deftly chronicles how Nixon's desire to open up China in order to diplomatically outflank the Soviet Union has become a virtual straitjacket on American policy. America's key decision-makers in successive administrations, Mann argues, mistakenly believed that younger leaders would reform China in much the same way that Mikhail Gorbachev transformed the Soviet Union. Using scores of interviews with top American players (former secretaries of state, national security advisers and CIA directors), as well as documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, he shows that the U.S. has been unable, especially in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, to pressure China to reform. By the 1990s, economic ties with Beijing had become such a driving force that the Chinese knew that all American threats?most importantly the threat of revoking Most Favored Nation trade status?were empty. Mann's descriptions of the behind-the-scenes jockeying among U.S. policy makers?the micropolitics behind the geopolitics?are so entertaining that his book will appeal to readers beyond foreign policy junkies.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (December 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067945053X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679450535
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #737,407 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best China read I've found in a long time., February 4, 2009

By 

Kate M. "kaibri" - See all my reviews

This review is from: About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (Paperback)

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.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars half the equation, May 9, 2000

By 

peter rupert lighte (hong kong) - See all my reviews

This review is from: About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (Hardcover)

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.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Journalistic View Of Recent US-China History, June 13, 2000

By 

"oxzo" - See all my reviews

This review is from: About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (Paperback)

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.