Customer Reviews

What Does China Think?

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

To get a perspective on what some Chinese political theorists are thinking, consider this: While Westerners "anguish" about how to manage China's rise, Chinese think-tankers debate about "how to manage the West's decline"! Wang Yiwei, from Fudan University, shares this worry, and asks, "How can we prevent the USA from declining too quickly?" (pp. 115-116)

What this book attempts to provide is a Chinese perspective on the rise of China and its place in the world as it has grown from a largely agrarian society in the days of Mao to a superpower of the 21st century. To do this, Mark Leonard, who wrote "Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century," traveled in China and interviewed many of China's leading thinkers on politics and economics. A number of these scholars have advanced degrees from American universities. They have taken Western ideas back to China and incorporated them into traditional Chinese ways of thinking, consistent with the dictates of the ruling Communist Party. Leonard shows that within this unique political culture there have arisen various points of view, from the "New Right" of, e.g., Zhang Weiying, to the "New Left" of, e.g., Wang Hui, from ideas about the "peaceful rise" of China to notions more in keeping with the thinking of the so-called "neo-comms." Part of the debate is about the use of military power, part of it is about how to influence other countries, and part of it is about how to manage its own people.

Since Deng Xiaoping opted for a market economy within the political dictatorship, the growth of China has been extraordinary. But with this growth have come problems: pollution, growing economic inequalities, the yearning for political democracy, and the infusion (perhaps one might even say the "invasion") of ideas foreign and inimical to the perceived interests of the communist state. To fight the disagreeable ideas from without, the government has trained "an e-police force of 100,000 people employed to scour the net, blocking sites and checking e-mails."

Leonard allows that this number may be exaggerated, but the point is clear: China wants to modernize, and to do so, must learn from the West, but at the same time it must not allow Western ideas to ferment dissention at home. Just how this delicate tightrope walk works in the public forums for China's leading thinkers is part of what makes this book interesting.

The "New Right" which led the change from Mao's soviet style economy to what the Chinese call "Yellow River Capitalism," which ushered in the gargantuan economic growth, has come under fire from various quarters, including the "New Left" which unlike the "old left" supports market reforms. However, as Wang Hui sees it, "China is caught between the two extremes of misguided socialism and crony capitalism...."He adds, "We must not give total priority to GDP growth to the exclusion of worker's rights and the environment." (p. 33) "Princeling" Pan Yue (as some of the privileged and talented members of the younger Chinese generation are called) "has talked of `China's environmental suicide,' and in an interview with the German magazine, Der Spiegel, predicted that `China's economic miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace.'" (p. 42-43)

Cui Zhiyuan, who is professor of Politics and Public Management at the Tsinghua University in Beijing, sees Chinese politics in Machiavellian terms: "For Machiavelli power was not divided between two levels: the state and the people. Florentine politics was split between three groups, the prince (the `one'), the nobles (the `few') and the people (the `many'). In today's China, the `one' is the Communist Party, the `few' are the super-rich, and the `many' are the people." (p. 47)

There have been some experiments in "deliberative democracy" at the village level to allow some input into central party decisions. The Chinese have learned from the experience of the Soviet Union that ignorance of what people at the grass roots level think can lead to not just inefficiency but to disaster. However this token gesture toward political reform is not likely to replace the "deliberative dictatorship" that current holds sway. Nonetheless, "The government seems to realize that developing institutional ways of dealing with grievances can make the state more stable." (p. 74)

I think this last point is one that we in the West and especially in the United States need to understand. For most people in the world the first responsibility of the state is to provide security and stability. After that perhaps political freedom can evolve. China, learning from the failed Soviet experiment, has put economic reform first and political reform later.

In international relationships, China is trying to develop "soft power" as a means to further its interests. The US, until the recent rise of George W. Bush and the neocons, exemplified the use of soft power to influence others through its culture and its economic strength. China wants to avoid the recent mistakes of the US such as invading other countries and is pursuing a policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other nations. Unfortunately it is also indiscriminately supporting dictators such as Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Leonard asserts that "China will never be supportive of multi-party elections and human rights: why would it promote rights for foreigners that it denies to its own citizens?" (p. 126)

Leonard provides a "Dramatis Personae" near the end of the book identifying some of China's leading political and economic thinkers. There are endnotes and an index. All things considered, this is a good, albeit short, introduction to contemporary Chinese political thinking.

I borrowed this book from a friend, and I haven't read all of it yet. I would just like to say though that this book is very unique in all the China literature I've been able to find, for a couple of reasons. First of all, it approaches China from an kind of humanistic point of view. A lot of commentary seems to simply treat the Communist regime as an impenetrable black box, or reduce their motivations to a couple of simplistic dimensions. This book undertakes a systematic study of Chinese political ideology, which is a fairly few thing. Secondly, it only studies political ideologies that seem to have any chance of being relevant in China. A lot of China analysis looks at things like peasant revolts, or dissident voices, as shaping China's future, without offering any evidence that anyone in the central regime even cares what they think. This book works the other way, starting out first by finding which voices the government is actually listening to. These are very simple premises, but I've been having difficulty finding any literature both as interesting and objective as this.

Mark Leonard's research provides readers with the voices of Chinese intellectuals not commonly read about in `western' academia. His book, "What Does China Think" paints stripes around the status of Chinese development in the ever-changing era of transnational globalization outlining its multi-faceted approach to making reforms through the implementation of various experiments throughout China. Leonard goes on to highlight the differences in the emerging political ideologies of the `neo-comm' to the `liberal internationalist', and the challenges facing the current hegemonic power of the United States while South-East Asia develops into a global superpower.
This book provided me with the insight I was looking for, detailed information about the development of China from the Chinese perspective. Leonard does a great job weaving together the information gathered from a variety of Chinese intellectuals with current globalization theories. A must-read for anyone interested in Chinese current affairs.

This is a very good book, the author takes great effort in accounting what the Chinese intellectuals are really thinking--a subject that most western observers didn't really care much.

When talking about the "China Model", however, what's in the author's mind is "the rise of Europe", or to be more exact, "the best from the West". And so the Chinese are just learning from the "best" of either the market economy or the democratic system. Here, none of the western intellectual bias are seen avoided. In the end, too much attention has been paid to the Chinese intellectuals, that is, too much to the "book culture", and too little to the real "institutional changes" (the "reality culture"), and certainly, too little to some conscientious self-examination of the western democracy and free market mechanism (from which the current financial crisis is derived).

What people think matters, but the real issue is: how are we thinking what we are thinking? The key is "institutions", not just the conventional "right" or "left" ideaology.

Writing a negative book review is much easier than writing a positive one. This is why I put off writing something nice for Mark Leonard's "What does China think" for so long. Why bother read my review, really? Just go and read the book!

For those of you who are not into reading, the book is quite thin, though amazingly informative. If you are scratching your head for a China strategy for your business, but have not yet come up with one, this book is a "must read" assignment. Even if you are Chinese and/or well versed in current Chinese affairs, you will still find the book worthwhile.

Instead of validating himself as a qualified voice on China, Mr. Leonard let the indigenous Chinese intellectuals speak to the Western audience through his book without tinting the content with Western bias. Acting as an intelligent mediator, he was able to highlight the insiders as well as the issues, that made up the crucial forces in powering the intricate Chinese policy machine.

"Since the time when French and British missionaries first travelled to the East, the West has focused on what it wanted from China - and how to convert the Chinese to a Western way of life. People wrongly assumed that as China grew richer, it would also become more like us." Mr. Leonard states in his introduction.

Too often, Western observers (intellectuals included) are too narcissistic and consumed with their own interpretations of the China phenomenon to investigate what the Chinese are thinking and saying. Meanwhile, the Western media is flooded with misrepresented information in tabloid on a country everyone is so eager to learn about and understand. This vicious cycle continues as ignorance spreads.

Mr. Leonard's writing can hopefully pull some of these readers back to focus on original sources rather than speculations, as his book covers nearly all of the major political, social, and economical topics of China. From "green cat development" and "inner party democracy experiment" in an obscure Sichuan village to "Sino-Afro" relationships, the author examines each fascinating policy embryo with intensity and depth. For many of these embryos will one day develop into full blown forces, which will profoundly impact the way we live and do business.

A word of caution, if you are not familiar with Chinese modern history, you might find reading this book hard going. Before you check out this book from the library, you might want to find a few companion books as reference.

Enjoy the read!

Mark Leonard's desultory ramble through China's intellectual landscape introduces that country's most influential economic, political, diplomatic and military thinkers. In a market nearly saturated with books that do little more than echo each other's amazed exclamations at China's rapid economic development, getAbstract considers this a refreshing change. The book does not offer in-depth analysis of the ideas it presents, nor does it assess their merits and demerits in any detail. It merely introduces a few very prominent Chinese intellectuals and offers a brief summary of their ideas. The book's chief value is that it acknowledges the breadth of the diversity of thought within China, and spotlights the conflicts and tensions that are shaping its development.

In adding to my general knowledge base of modern Chinese politics and economics, I added Mark Leonard's book to my library based purely cover design. Nonetheless, the book is a easy read small gem in the wallop it packs in understanding the NewChina.

The introductory statement "that without understanding China, it would be impossible to understand world politics," (pg. 8) is never more true than today. The author is adept in the comparison of Thomas Friedman's "flat world" of globalization to the China-created philosophy of a "Walled World" (pg. 18). The contrast is both enlightening and insightful.

The zebra-horse allegory (pg. 23) was funny yet so true in the description of the methods used by China to change a state controlled economy to a market economy in the late 20th Century combined with the notion of incremental democracy or consultation with a new informed intellectual technocracy in party and government policy (pg. 67).

The concept of Comprehensive National Power (pg. 83) is most interesting and how the Chinese think-tanks conducted case studies of rising nation state powers (pg. 90). Moreover, the Chinese cultural outreach (pg. 95) especially in African economic affairs is impressive.

Several bona fide points were made by the author: 1] "that it is no longer axiomatic that liberal democracy as the necessary foundation for development," (pg. 96); 2] China has "developed a brand of 'listening diplomacy', contrasting to the multilateralism with American unilateralism," (pg. 97); the goal "is not to cut China off but rather to allow China to engage with the world on its own terms," (pg. 118); and, China "is determined to defend an older idea sovereignty, based around the sovereign rights of states," (pg. 128 and 132).

This reader enjoyed the description of China's participation in multinational organizations of the so-called 'flat world' and advancing state capitialism and the market economy (horses-to-zebras) while making central communist party control more fashionable domestically and internationally.

I read this book for my Chinese Politics class at my university. It changed absolutely EVERYTHING I thought I knew about China and I found it absolutely fascinating! A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the rapidly changing dynamics of an immensely diverse country!

In this relatively brief, but information packed and highly readable book Leonard lays out the fundamental lines of thought currently at play in China. Although China is thought of by many in the West as intellectually monolithic and not allowing any disagreement or wavering from the Party line, Leonard demonstrates this view is blatantly false and provides a front row seat to the intellectual disagreements of a profound nature that are erupting in China, the resolution of which will shape China, and hence our own, future.
Central to understanding China today is the distinction between "New Left" and "New Right." In order to find a foothold in Communist China the "New Right" had to make "market ideas palatable to the older Communist elite" (24). To accomplish this goal, according to Leonard, they utilized a strategy illustrated by the story of a village that was unwilling to use zebras instead of horses, even though the zebras were better suited to their needs. To familiarize the village to the zebras, those in charge painted horses with stripes. At first alarmed, the villagers soon grew used to the striped animals, and it was not long before zebras could be introduced. Just so, market ideas had to be given Communist cover if they were to be implemented. Hence, "by referring to the market revolution as `socialism with Chinese characteristics', the authorities were able to use quotes from Marx and Mao to repackage the ideas of Milton Friedman and Frederich Hayek" (31)
One might think all is well for the New Right in China today, as to the outside observer unvarnished capitalism seems to be in control. But lurking in the shadows--the yin to the New Right's yang, as it were--is the "New Left." According to Leonard, "They are `new' because unlike the `old left' they support market reforms. They are Left, because unlike the `New Right' they worry about inequality" (33). In addition, the New Left is concerned with the environmental impact that has resulted from China's breakneck development.
So where do things stand today? Read the book and find out. For full review see [...]

Leonard wrote the book because he was impressed by the excitement of intellectual debates in China, and wanted to make the world aware of them. His impressions began with a 2003 visit to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing. CASS has 4,000 full-time researchers. Leonard had imagined that China's intellectual life consisted of but a few ideologues.

Researching the book took three years. Leonard was surprised to find relatively open debate in leading newspapers and academic journals about China's economic model, how to clean up corruption, and approaches to foreign policy.

One million students have studied outside China since 1978; Leonard claims that fewer than half have returned, though that number is rising.

"What Does China Think" is based on interviews with a number of Chinese intellectuals, mostly Western educated. The World Bank estimates over 3,000 SEZs have been set up in over 120 countries. Leonard believes the Chinese economic model could greatly benefit Africa (China is investing heavily in infrastructure and making loans there as part of its quest to insure access to natural resources), Latin America, and the Middle East, that China is changing from an authoritarian state to a 'deliberative dictatorship,' and that China hopes to use a 'China Dream' to challenge U.S. military power.

Three factions now battle for influence within China. 1)The 'New Left,' who want a social safety net, reduced inequality, and protections for the environment. 2)The 'New Right' who want SOEs sold off. Polls show this is the least popular - citizens are upset over layoffs and illegal demolitions. The 11th five-year plan, released at the end of 2005, was the first that did not describe economic growth as the overriding goal - instead it talked about increasing funds for pensions, unemployment benefits, health insurance, education, reductions in energy consumption, and maternity leave. 3)The 'Neo-Comms,' who want military modernization and diplomacy to assert China's power in the world.

Leonard also reports on experiments in local politics designed to improve accountability without significantly reducing the monopoly on power held by the CCP. Pinchang, a county in Sichuan province, now allows party members to vote for the bosses of township parties. Others note that western election turnout is falling, and study how leaders go over the heads of political parties via referendums and opinion surveys, and see China making public consultation, expert meetings, and surveys part of decision-making. Zeguo is experimenting with the latter.

Some results: In 1995, the U.S. won 50.6% of votes in the UN general assembly; by 2006, this fell to 23.6%. On human rights, China's win-rate has risen from 43% to 82%, while the U.S.'s fell from 57% to 22%. Per Stefan Halper in the July/August "Foreign Policy," support for Chinese positions on human rights jumped from 50% in 2000 to 74% in 2008, per the European Council on Foreign Relations, and 41 countries that were Western-voting allies on human rights issues in the U.N. 10 years ago now support China and Russia. Within the WTO, Beijing has already put together an African coalition large enough to torpedo specific rules it opposes.

China is changing so fast that Shanghai maps need to be redrawn every two weeks; the nation continues to add to the 300 million already pulled from agricultural backwardness into modernity in just 30 years. Leonard helps update our knowledge of this important nation.

Concluding, Leonard states that China is not an intellectually open society, but it is experimenting with deliberative democracy - like it earlier experimented with SEZs.