Customer Reviews

America's Response to China

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Foreign relations historian Warren I. Cohen does a masterly job of condensing more than 200 years of Sino-American history (up to the Clinton administration, so not including today's complex fiscal ties) into a brief, readable book. For the most part, his approach is factual and reportorial - Cohen avoids grand sweeps of theory and interpretation. However, to the untrained eye, this book may seem quite confusing: Cohen uses the Wade-Giles system of romanizing Chinese characters, rather than the more familiar pinyin system, and his organization of historic material is only very roughly chronological. Readers will nonetheless acquire a strong sense of the important themes, the major evolutionary stages and the prominent figures involved in the development of Sino-U.S. relations. getAbstract recommends this retrospective account to anyone with a professional, non-academic interest in the history of America's relationship with China.

China is a country ancient as the hills and long used to autocratic governance while America is a young country by comparison, borned and lived democratically. The two countries are as different as chalk and cheese. They are miles apart, literally and figuratively, yet they keep rubbing each other and keeps each other in sight, sometimes in awe, sometimes in contempt, always with suspicion. Warren Cohen has written the fifth edition of his book a year shy of the 40 years since his first edition was published (1971). He begins the story of US-Sino relationship from the mid nineteenth century when America entered China as Britains's junior parrtner in commerce. Cohen covers the role of America during this period in which treaties were being made between China and the Western powers, namely Britain and France. China used America in its efforts to contain if not isolate Britain. America witnessed two rebellions in China - the Taiping rebellion and the Boxer rebellion - and eased its way cautiously through them. When the Japanese and the Russians began their intrusions into China, America once again found itself a useful third party to China, and economic prospects for itself.

That had been the American attitude to China which seemed to be a rehearsal for the later Chinese civil war between the Nationalists under Chinag Kai Shek and the Communists under Mao Tze Tung. From a policy since Roosevelt's discerning but careful approach, America aided Chiang more because it feared communism than it loved the Nationalists. Cohen might be telling a different history today had the Americans gone all out to help Chiang push the communists out; but it realised that that wasn't a task worth the risks. Dean Acheson was reported to have said that he took office as American secretary of state at the time when Chiang Kai Shek was closed to collapse. At that time, Acheson himself was more concerned about creating NATO than to contain communism in Asia. The Nationalists eventually found itself governing Taiwan, keeping the dream of a Republic of China alive but incapable of realization as the mainland grew economically and militarily from the 1960's.

Cohen traces the thawing of the frosty US-Sino relationship in the 1970's and 1980' to the new awkwardness caused by China's repression of human rights activists in China and Tibet, and the supression of major movements like the Falungong. Nonetheless, America was determined not to create open hostility with China and both sides arrived at a quiet compromise when China detained the American reconnaissance plane that had collided with a Chinese fighter plane.

Cohen comes up to date with the situation in the twenty-first century. He identifies the two issues that contibue to divide the two countries. The first is America's continued rejection of communism, and second, America's support for a democratic Taiwan. The problem is that China is adamant that Taiwan must not be accepted internationally as an independent nation. America's response to Chinese intentions will be tricky. When America exerted pressure on China prior to the twenty-first century, it was the moral, economic, and military leader in the world. Now, as Cohen observed, "George W Bush had succeeded where the propagandists employed by Hitler, Stalin and Mao failed: it made the United States a pariah, largely as a result of its invasion of Iraq, its approval of torture in violation of the Geneva Convention, the symbolism of the Guantanamo prison complex, and the appalling photographs of the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Graib. International public opinion polls recorded widespread unhappiness with the United States, even among its allies - and a broad consensus that Washingtoon posed a greater threat to the world than did Beijing." In this current state, as China expands economically and militarily, what will America's response be, especially when America continues to want a China that is "peaceful, prosperous, open, responsible, and cooperative".

Cohen has provided a clear, concise and up-to-date account of the US-Sino relationship that is also analytical and a joy to read.

The Cohen book is the only piece of literature written on US-Sino relations since 1840. Being that it is the sole book that covers US-Sino relations, it is horribly dense and very difficult to follow. China and US relations is complicated in and of itself, but Cohen manages to make the reader more confused and less knowledgable on the subject after reading it. The book is frustrating to get through because his prose is long-winded and not concise. He also has a tendency to throw people into the scene without sufficiently introducing who they are, why they are important, and often times what time period is being discussed. He seems to gloss over very important issues like "And then the Communists took over" (which was the entire depth of discussion as to the transition process into communism) and spends 30 pages on the tribute system of the 1840s and 50s, which is a very minor aspect to China's relationship with the United Sates. He also writes on the assumption that the reader has considerable background into both United States and Chinese history which makes reading for the casual person very difficult. If this text wasn't supplemented by classroom lecture, I would feel very lost, and since it is the only text on the topic, I would continue to stay lost.

I guess I already knew a lot of the information presented in this book. Still an interesting read. I liked it.

I thought this book was good. I disagree with the other customer review.
I enjoyed it. Clinton was very strong.
(...)

this book tells about the relations with china and the U.S. about their crazy relationship but don't buy this book it is not as good as you think okay so what are you waiting for go out and but it. just make sure you don't buy it!