Hegemon: China's Plan to Dominate Asia and the World [Hardcover]

Steven W. Mosher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 2000

Hegemon is as timely as today's headlines about Chinese efforts to influence U.S. elections and steal U.S. nuclear secrets. But it is also a masterful work of scholarship that reinforces Steven Mosher's reputation as one of our most thoughtful and provocative China watchers.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

To understand modern China, writes Steven W. Mosher, one must understand that country's ancient sense of self. For 48 of the last 50 centuries, China has had the largest population and the most advanced economy in the world--and the Chinese know it. They have always viewed themselves as "culturally superior to other peoples," writes Mosher, an expert on China and author of A Mother's Ordeal. The Chinese also possess a self-identity dependent upon the concept of what Mosher calls "the Hegemon": "the non-Western notion that the premier goal of foreign policy should be to establish absolute dominance over one's region and, by slow extension, the world." All the feel-good talk coming out of Washington about "strategic partnerships" and "most-favored-nation status" are woefully naive, says Mosher. The Chinese, he writes, believe they are in "a worldwide contest with the U.S. to replace the current Pax Americana with a Pax Sinica." In other words, they want nothing less than to displace the United States as the world's sole superpower.

Mosher debunks what he considers to be the most pervasive and harmful myths about China: the notion that democracy is inevitably in its future, that market forces will advance freedom, that exposure to American culture will lead to change, and that technological developments such as the Internet will propel reform. In short, he firmly opposes all the rosy scenarios embraced by Congress and the Clinton administration. This is a provocative book--and one the Chinese government surely won't welcome, given its deep suspicion and frequent reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Neither will many American elites, who come in for a severe beating: "It is a scandal that most former secretaries of state (beginning with Henry Kissinger), most former national security advisors (also beginning with Kissinger) and most of their senior deputies have gone into the China trade subsequent to their government service, often without even allowing the passage of a decent interval before beginning to cash in." Mosher wants Americans to make a more cold-eyed assessment of a country he believes is not a friend, but a threat. --John J. Miller

About the Author

Steven W Mosher --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 189 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books (June 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893554082
• ISBN-13: 978-1893554085
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #510,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Chinese keep threatening while their apologists keep denying, July 19, 2005

By 

Mr. Chen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hegemon: China's Plan to Dominate Asia and the World (Hardcover)

The Chinese keep threatening while their apologists keep denying the threat.

Steven Mosher's Hegemon: China's Plan to Dominate Asia and the World is still relevant in the post-9/11 world.

The Islamofascist terrorists can hurt us, China can destroy us and actually aims to do so.

Chinese Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu warned in July 2005 that if the U.S. interfered in a Chinese attack on Taiwan it could lead to a Chinese nuclear attack on U.S. cities.

Gen. Xiong Guangkai, the Chinese Army's second highest ranking general, made the same threat ten years earlier in 1995, saying that Americans "care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei."

I'll believe the threats of Chinese generals over the self-serving denials of their stooges here in the West.

33 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Important Book on China, August 30, 2000

By 

Michael A. Taylor (Kadena Air Base, Okinawa Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hegemon: China's Plan to Dominate Asia and the World (Hardcover)

This is an extremely important work on China. It seems to be saying, among other things, that an independent Taiwan is in the interest of the United States. I have long shared the misgivings of others regarding China's motivation for military modernization and the true objective of its foreign policy. Dr. Mosher provides a well crafted overview of a historical basis to question where China is going. At times the thesis of the book is stretched but the basic logic is consistent and well argued. It seemed to me, that one might argue that its the Chinese Communist Party we need to fear vice, "China" itself. The only criticism I might have, is that it lacked the personal perspective that enlivened most of Dr. Mosher's previous works. Overall, an excellent read, and a very important work for those interested in the future of Asia and the US.

71 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars China is aiming to be the world's new Hegemon, July 12, 2000

By 

Chuck DeVore "Chuck DeVore" (Irvine, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Hegemon: China's Plan to Dominate Asia and the World (Hardcover)

According to the Chinese strategic literature, Chinese strategists believe three things. First, they believe that war with the United States is inevitable, as China's defense minister has recently stated. Second, they believe that China can win such a war. Third, they believe that by the middle of the next century one country--a hegemon--will come to dominate the world, and that this hegemon will be China.

Hegemon, Steven Mosher's new book on the China threat, makes it clear that China wants to organize the world the way it has for 2,000 years. It wants China as the center, surrounded by kowtowing tributary states. That is the very meaning of the country's name in Chinese: Zhongguo--the kingdom in the middle. But Mosher tells us that there is another name, even more revealing, that the Chinese have for their country. They call it Tianxia--all under heaven. A fitting name for a once and future hegemon, a manifest ruler of the world.

This is a must read for all those concerned about China's growing stature in the world, and what America must do to forestall the China threat, and promote human rights and democracy in that vast and powerful country.

Waiting until China attacks Taiwan will be too late. America needs to wake up to a new and chilling reality.

Reviewer: Chuck DeVore is a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010, a California State Assemblyman, he served as a Special Assistant for Foreign Affairs in the Department of Defense from 1986 to 1988, retired from the Army National Guard as a lieutenant colonel, and is the co-author of "China Attacks."