Customer Reviews

The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China's Search for Security

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Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ross's THE GREAT WALL AND THE EMPTY FORTRESS is a clearly and tightly written presentation of Chinese foreign policy and defense issues. It is as reliable in its treatment of aspects of the pre-modern Chinese state and society that impinged on the course of modern Chinese affairs as it is authoritative (and well documented) in its analysis of the contemporary Chinese situation. With books on contemporary Chinese affairs, one must be concerned with material becoming dated, but though this book is some four years old in content, nearly its entirety is nevertheless very relevant. Its treatment of Chinese-Taiwan relations, for instance, is still on the mark. Since the book was written before the restoration of Hong Kong to China, the reader will not be able to glean anything new about that situation here. However that may be, this book remains as "must reading" for any student of contemporary China. The reader will happily discover that the style is eminently readable.

I am rather disturbed by the negative review one of the other readers presented. Apparently, the message that Nathan/Ross present in this work is greatly needed... a message that that reader chose to ignore.

This is a book about Chinese motivation. This is not a book seeking to pass historical judgement on the actions of a regime that has evolved over the past five decades. This is not a book seeking to present Western justification for any particular view of where China is going. This is a book about why the Chinese government usually acts, as most of us, in a rational manner within its framework of desires and wishes. Without understanding that particular framework, it's a hopeless fallacy to believe that you can truly explain the actions of the PRC.

Was the PRC's actions in Tibet a matter of territorial integrity? Nathan/Ross doesn't bother trying to advocate any particular view on this, or any other, controversial matter. They DO however suggest that from the perspective of the Chinese, the events in Tibet follow rationally from a consistent foreign policy that values territorial integrity.

This is a crucial book for anyone that wants facts, not more rhetoric.

Nathan and Ross have constructed an excellent book discussing the vulnerability of China. The book goes into great depth discussing issues such as: Taiwanese independence, nuclear proliferation, the strength of the chinese military, the necessity of U.S. intervention in Asia, the relationships existing between China and Japan or the two Koreas, Tibetan freedom, technological exchange with Pakistan. Ultimately, Nathan and Ross conclude that China is a weak and vulnerable country that is more concerned with maintaining its borders and internal stability than initiated a policy of imperialism. This book is a great edition for any student of Asian Politics. Easy to read.

As far as I'm concerned, this book does an excellent job detailing China's foreign policy. From relations with the West to African affairs, Nathan and Ross are able to concisely explain the importance of each relationship and the dangers confronting China. Furthermore, they also touch on the internal security concerns that the Chinese government must confront. This is a great book to read for people interested in China's foreign policy and what impacts it has on the world.

This book should be mandatory reading for anybody interested in China, or in world politics. Nathan and Ross explain China's place in the international political arena, both froom Chinese perspective and from western point of view.

Excellent!

This is a good read fao most people interested in China. If you view China as an enemy, it might change your view, and if you think that they are all bark and no bite, you will agree with this book totally

This is the best book I have ever read on China in my life. It captures the essence of the problems in China perfectly and rids our minds of the usual sterotype that China is our horrible enemy. Anyone looking for a meaningful and informative book on China should definatly pick this up

National security is a term we're used to hearing in the United States, but with rare exception "security threats" are in fact threats to America's vast informal empire abroad (military bases, troop deployments, the security of client regimes and business interests). As Ross and Nathan ably show, this is emphatically not the case for China. Even though "China is stronger today and its borders more secure than at any other time in the last 150 years", it continues to face a bewildering array of vulnerabilities -- from internal unrest to border insecurity to economic instability.

This book is a good corrective to the growing right-wing trend of playing up the "China threat". Ross and Nathan make clear that China's goals are not particularly ambitious and their capabilities so limited that even if the sinister cabal of Communists plotting against America's beneficent reign were real, it would be hard pressed to act out its evil intentions. Chapter 8, in particular, demolishes the idea that China's military will any time soon provide a real challenge to Japan, much less the USA.

Despite the great service Ross and Nathan provide in refuting the containment school's arguments, this book also has basic problems. Because it is a survey, the authors can only superficially treat each of the many issues raised. They do a good job of integrating history and current events, and the book should be quite useful for those mostly unfamiliar with its topics, but for those with more detailed knowledge it will often by unsatisfying.

Second, the authors use the national security paradigm to orient their analysis, but seem unaware of the drawbacks to such an approach. "National" security indulges the false idea that all groups and individuals within a nation can share the same interests and that national leaders act, fundamentally, on behalf of the whole population. In reality security policies generally hurt the interests of some groups while advancing those of others, and China's leaders act to perpetuate their own power and the power of the Communist Party, and to protect the interests of the increasingly influential business elite. The authors' inability to consider such matters leads them to seriously downplay the ruling class's increasing economic exploitation of workers and its violent domination of ethnically non-Han peoples in East Turkestan/Xinjiang, Tibet/Xizang, and Inner Mongolia.

And finally, the authors approach the subject from the perspective of the engagement school, which has both strengths (discussed above) and very serious weaknesses. Proponents of engagement are ideologically incapable of seeing that the current global economic system is based on inequality, exploitation, and the denial of people's basic needs (food, health care, shelter) and that it is upheld by American military domination of other people. Ross and Nathan's ultimate recommendation, then, is that China be safely integrated into this system -- not because doing so will help the Chinese people, but because doing so removes a threat to the safe operation of a fundamentally unjust world order.

This book cuts through all the political babble to give a clear definition of how and why the Chinese "government" thinks the way it does. This book is insightfull and thought provocking. A must read for Congress.