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The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds

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The People's Republic of China (PRC) is the largest, most rapidly changing player on the world stage today. Lampton has not only studied the PRC for 38 years, but also visited and interviewed its top leaders. He believes that China will be fully occupied for the next 10-15+ years dealing with its domestic employment (providing employment to the 10 million labor-market entrants each year, plus the 300 million more leaving its farms between now and 2020), technology development, education, health care, natural resource, environment, and infrastructure needs and will not be a destabilizing force. Just its need for new cities to accommodate anticipated migration requires creating building new cities the size of New York every four months for 14 years.

Lambert begins "The Three Faces of Chinese Power" by carefully defining the term 'power' - "the authoritative ability to define and achieve objectives;" methods to achieve this include 'might' (coercive power though military action), 'money' (can obtain coercive power, influence others through potential purchases), and 'minds' (ideational, soft power reflected in quality of leadership and innovation). After studying China's approach to state power dating back some 2,500 years, Lampton concludes that their aim is to win domestic and international support for its agenda, see it through to implementation, utilize an optimum mix of power sources to maximize efficiency, and "desist from pursuing policies that prove ineffective or counterproductive."

China's military budget has been growing at double-digit rates for about 15 years (not adjusted for inflation), while cutting ground forces since the 1980s. Our Department of Defense (DOD) estimates China could currently have 60 ICBMs. China's most serious concern is that Taiwan might try to break away, and they have deployed 700-800 missiles within striking distance, upgraded their naval and air forces, and repeatedly discourage the U.S. from getting involved. Chinese sources claim its 2009 military spending was 1.7% of GDP; however, that's likely an understatement - akin to U.S. budget practice that separates considerable portions of DOD spending from its main budget line. Regardless, China despite its recent forays into space, is by no means a peer military competitor with the U.S., though it is in a league with the U.K. and Russia and even one ICMB merits serious consideration. Lampton sees its economic and ideational powers as much stronger, however, and likely to be the most important in the long run.

Economic power is the most convertible form of strength, and China has plenty of that. However, Lampton also points out that firms with foreign investment accounted for 57.3% of its total exports, and an even higher 85% of high-tech exports. Thus, it is easy to overestimate China's export power, and forget that trade barriers would punish both the U.S. and its allies. (China is now making investments in U.S. companies and building solar etc. plants here to further help defend against protectionism.) Conversely, Lampton sees a tendency to underestimate China's government-directed purchasing strength. Access to China's vast markets for eg. nuclear power, communications and transportation gear, backed up by equally vast currency reserves give it considerable power to negotiate prices, compel technology transfers, and influence policy (eg. embargo purchases from U.S. companies that impede its interests). It's infrastructure and resource investments in Africa, Australia, Latin America (planned $100 billion by 2014), and even Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq give China considerable world-stage political power as well.

Former President Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" speech in 2002 emphasized the importance of representing the developmental needs and a majority of China's populace. This focus then led to allowing the formerly reviled entrepreneurial class to join its Chinese Communist Party (CCP) - broadening the mind-power within its leadership group while co-opting that group at the same time. By 2004 34% of private enterprise owners were CCP members. Other components of China's efforts to strengthen minds include a one-third increase in the proportion of GDP devoted to public education, large numbers of outstanding students sent abroad for university educations and scientific training (also increasing efforts to have them return), encouraging the establishment of some 750 foreign-backed R&D centers within China by 2006, and its intent to establish a world-ranked top-20 university by 2020. Lampton notes that China's foreign-service personnel are especially well-educated and trained.

Lampton served as an advisor to candidate Obama, and may still be contributing advice to President Obama. If so, Lampton would probably repeat his book's conclusions that China is too big and important, with too many other nations interested in cooperating with it, to be pushed around. We should stop seeing China principally as a military challenge, thereby squandering our own resources and possibly provoking the truculence we want to avoid. Instead, Lampton believes we should work together on the environment, global warming, pandemic prevention, etc. As for competing economically with China, Lampton points out that we cannot do so when our expenditures for health care so much higher (17.3% vs. their 4%), our largely unmitigated dependence on external foreign oil purchases, and an ineffectual (and more costly) K-12 education system. Lampton could also add that our much higher proportion of expenditures on defense is another impediment to economic competitiveness.

No major international challenge can be met today without China's assistance - witness current U.S. problems with Iran and North Korea, and note also that Afghanistan, North Korea, and Pakistan all border China. However, it should not be seen as a modern-day Eden - over half its citizens live on incomes typical of the world's poorest states, and its environmental problems are well-known. While straight-line projections of past performance can be wildly off the mark (eg. Japan in the 1990s, Russia's Sputnik in the 1960s), most believe China's power will continue to grow rapidly. Meanwhile, both China and the U.S. continue to gamble that the other will not be a disturbance.


Bottom-Line: Lampton's "The Three Faces of Chinese Power" is a thoughtful and informative resource that helps understand the motivation and direction of its leaders. Further, his recommendations are solidly grounded. However, I would suggest adding three:

1)That we become much more courteous vs. China and stop publicly lecturing it about human rights, Tibet, etc., especially within its own territory. (We have serious governance problems of our own, including a disproportionate emphasis on campaign cash, and an inability to resolve major problems.)

2)That instead of constantly criticizing China we instead learn from it. For example, why and how the Chinese save so much (30-40% over the years, vs. our recent negative savings), how they inculcate such strong respect for education and build upon it with high-stakes testing requirements to enter college, the potential advantages of a government industrial policy, and how they have used protectionism to nurture nascent and vital industries. In addition, we should take a page from Lampton's thinking and reconsider government policies that have proven counterproductive - eg. aid to Israel, stationing troops in 100+ countries, and providing corporate farm aid that allows our farms to undercut Mexican farmers and drive them northward in waves of illegal migration.

3)That we recognize the Tienanmen Square tragedy of 1989 could easily have escalated into something far worse. The demonstrations were replicated in major cities across China, had gone on for weeks, and were intensifying - possibly into a civil war and another disastrous Cultural Revolution. Thus, there was some justification to fear that all its recent reforms and improvements would quickly have been lost. I suspect its new middle and upper-classes, along with many of the aspiring lower class would now agree with the actions then taken.

What I especially liked about D. Lampton's approach to this very popular subject is how he structured the book and the terminology that he used because it is done in a way that reflects Chinese thought and vocabulary on these issues. Moreover, his analysis and understanding of the issue is top-notch!

KW

It's a very interesting book that the author uses a unique argument to discuss current Asian affair and related issues. I like it because it provides a framework to decribe US-China relation, but not writting a micor-history along the time lines. Great book and reasonable assumptions of powers, "Might", "Money" and "Mind."

The Three Faces of Chinese Power is rich in contemporary political science and economic content relating to the modern China. The book has excellent references illustrating theory to define new notions of power.

I highly recommend this book to any person who is seriously seeking to understand modern China in the 21st Century. Mr. Lampton's book will help readers integrate other source acquired knowledge gained from books, journals and daily news sources in understanding the United States economic and diplomatic relations with New China. David Lampton's book is, in a word, "IMPRESSIVE." It will stay in my library a good while.

Thank you Mr. Lampton for the diligent and determined work demonstrated in your well-researched and easily read book. I am glad to have had the opportunity to digest every well-written page.

I haven't finished this book yet, but I am enjoying it. It is a difficult read, smaller print and a very interesting choice of words. I often find myself re-reading a sentance to make sure I understood the authors intent. I think the material is relevant to those who are interested in the ever growing China and how the US will be challenged by them in the future. Reads very much like a text book, which was OK because I bought this book to learn something.

The Three Faces of Chinese Power illustrates how China is becoming a leading figure on the world stage. China uses both conventional and unconventional means to increase their sphere of influence and it is by passing many global organizations dominated by the west to achieve their goals. China recognizes that countries ranging from Vietnam to Australia are becoming more reliant on China and they are using this new power to their advantage. The Three Faces of Chinese Power is a timely book for anyone who wants to better understand how the world is changing and it puts the rise of China into better perspective.

I gave this book to a friend, Henry Sailer, who was raised in China and very knowledgeable. This is his review.

This is a remarable book.It will enlighten the most advanced specialist and, at the same time, teach the new beginner.

There are new facts to be absorbed in virtually every sentence and Mr. Lampton's writing and organizational skills are such that the reader approachs each chapter with mounting fascination.

Mr. Lampton obviously has entree to leaders of most of the Asian states of which he writes - an entree which he has employed with commendable discretion and which brings to light facts and ideas which would otherwise not be available to the most zealot scholar, student or layman.

I have never said of any book of this kind that I intended to read it again. I do now.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is the largest, most rapidly changing player on the world stage today. Lampton has not only studied the PRC for 38 years, but also visited and interviewed its top leaders. He believes that China will be fully occupied for the next 10-15+ years dealing with its domestic employment (providing employment to the 10 million labor-market entrants each year, plus the 300 million more leaving its farms between now and 2020), technology development, education, health care, natural resource, environment, and infrastructure needs and will not be a destabilizing force. Just its need for new cities to accommodate anticipated migration requires creating building new cities the size of New York every four months for 14 years.

Lambert begins "The Three Faces of Chinese Power" by carefully defining the term 'power' - "the authoritative ability to define and achieve objectives;" methods to achieve this include 'might' (coercive power though military action), 'money' (can obtain coercive power, influence others through potential purchases), and 'minds' (ideational, soft power reflected in quality of leadership and innovation). After studying China's approach to state power dating back some 2,500 years, Lampton concludes that their aim is to win domestic and international support for its agenda, see it through to implementation, utilize an optimum mix of power sources to maximize efficiency, and "desist from pursuing policies that prove ineffective or counterproductive."

China's military budget has been growing at double-digit rates for about 15 years (not adjusted for inflation), while cutting ground forces since the 1980s. Our Department of Defense (DOD) estimates China could currently have 60 ICBMs. China's most serious concern is that Taiwan might try to break away, and they have deployed 700-800 missiles within striking distance, upgraded their naval and air forces, and repeatedly discourage the U.S. from getting involved. Chinese sources claim its 2009 military spending was 1.7% of GDP; however, that's likely an understatement - akin to U.S. budget practice that separates considerable portions of DOD spending from its main budget line. Regardless, China despite its recent forays into space, is by no means a peer military competitor with the U.S., though it is in a league with the U.K. and Russia and even one ICMB merits serious consideration. Lampton sees its economic and ideational powers as much stronger, however, and likely to be the most important in the long run.

Economic power is the most convertible form of strength, and China has plenty of that. However, Lampton also points out that firms with foreign investment accounted for 57.3% of its total exports, and an even higher 85% of high-tech exports. Thus, it is easy to overestimate China's export power, and forget that trade barriers would punish both the U.S. and its allies. (China is now making investments in U.S. companies and building solar etc. plants here to further help defend against protectionism.) Conversely, Lampton sees a tendency to underestimate China's government-directed purchasing strength. Access to China's vast markets for eg. nuclear power, communications and transportation gear, backed up by equally vast currency reserves give it considerable power to negotiate prices, compel technology transfers, and influence policy (eg. embargo purchases from U.S. companies that impede its interests). It's infrastructure and resource investments in Africa, Australia, Latin America (planned $100 billion by 2014), and even Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq give China considerable world-stage political power as well.

Former President Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" speech in 2002 emphasized the importance of representing the developmental needs and a majority of China's populace. This focus then led to allowing the formerly reviled entrepreneurial class to join its Chinese Communist Party (CCP) - broadening the mind-power within its leadership group while co-opting that group at the same time. By 2004 34% of private enterprise owners were CCP members. Other components of China's efforts to strengthen minds include a one-third increase in the proportion of GDP devoted to public education, large numbers of outstanding students sent abroad for university educations and scientific training (also increasing efforts to have them return), encouraging the establishment of some 750 foreign-backed R&D centers within China by 2006, and its intent to establish a world-ranked top-20 university by 2020. Lampton notes that China's foreign-service personnel are especially well-educated and trained.

Lampton served as an advisor to candidate Obama, and may still be contributing advice to President Obama. If so, Lampton would probably repeat his book's conclusions that China is too big and important, with too many other nations interested in cooperating with it, to be pushed around. We should stop seeing China principally as a military challenge, thereby squandering our own resources and possibly provoking the truculence we want to avoid. Instead, Lampton believes we should work together on the environment, global warming, pandemic prevention, etc. As for competing economically with China, Lampton points out that we cannot do so when our expenditures for health care so much higher (17.3% vs. their 4%), our largely unmitigated dependence on external foreign oil purchases, and an ineffectual (and more costly) K-12 education system. Lampton could also add that our much higher proportion of expenditures on defense is another impediment to economic competitiveness.

No major international challenge can be met today without China's assistance - witness current U.S. problems with Iran and North Korea, and note also that Afghanistan, North Korea, and Pakistan all border China. However, it should not be seen as a modern-day Eden - over half its citizens live on incomes typical of the world's poorest states, and its environmental problems are well-known. While straight-line projections of past performance can be wildly off the mark (eg. Japan in the 1990s, Russia's Sputnik in the 1960s), most believe China's power will continue to grow rapidly. Meanwhile, both China and the U.S. continue to gamble that the other will not be a disturbance.


Bottom-Line: Lampton's "The Three Faces of Chinese Power" is a thoughtful and informative resource that helps understand the motivation and direction of its leaders. Further, his recommendations are solidly grounded. However, I would suggest adding three:

1)That we become much more courteous vs. China and stop publicly lecturing it about human rights, Tibet, etc., especially within its own territory. (We have serious governance problems of our own, including a disproportionate emphasis on campaign cash, and an inability to resolve major problems.)

2)That instead of constantly criticizing China we instead learn from it. For example, why and how the Chinese save so much (30-40% over the years, vs. our recent negative savings), how they inculcate such strong respect for education and build upon it with high-stakes testing requirements to enter college, the potential advantages of a government industrial policy, and how they have used protectionism to nurture nascent and vital industries. In addition, we should take a page from Lampton's thinking and reconsider government policies that have proven counterproductive - eg. aid to Israel, stationing troops in 100+ countries, and providing corporate farm aid that allows our farms to undercut Mexican farmers and drive them northward in waves of illegal migration.

3)That we recognize the Tienanmen Square tragedy of 1989 could easily have escalated into something far worse. The demonstrations were replicated in major cities across China, had gone on for weeks, and were intensifying - possibly into a civil war and another disastrous Cultural Revolution. Thus, there was some justification to fear that all its recent reforms and improvements would quickly have been lost. I suspect its new middle and upper-classes, along with many of the aspiring lower class would now agree with the actions then taken.

The historical perspective detailed in this book is most interesting, very good book to read.