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About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton Paperback – February 15, 2000

by James Mann (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 35 ratings
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"Mann's colorful and detailed narrative, studded with dozens of vivid anecdotes, reveals how ineptly [we] have managed our ties with the world's most populous nation." --The Washington Post Book World

Drawing on hundreds of previously classified documents, scores of interviews, and his own experience, James Mann, former Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau chief, presents the fascinating inside story of contemporary U.S.-China relations.

President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger began their diplomacy with China in an attempt to find a way out of Vietnam. The remaining Cold War presidents saw China as an ally against the Soviet Union and looked askance at its violations of international principles. With the end of communism and China's continued human rights abuses, the U.S has failed to forge a genuinely new relationship with China. This is the essential story of contemporary U.S./China policy.
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  1. Print length
    464 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Vintage
  4. Publication date
    February 15, 2000
  5. Dimensions
    5.2 x 1.05 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780679768616
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0679768616
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Revealing and lively--eminently readable, often provocative."--The Wilson Quarterly

"The best book ever written by an American reporter about the strange relation between China and America."--Ross Terrill, author of Mao, China in Our Time, and Madame Mao

"Mann takes us through the dizzying diplomacy and strategic U-turns that have characterized our formal relationship."--The Wall Street Journal

From the Inside Flap

"Mann's colorful and detailed narrative, studded with dozens of vivid anecdotes, reveals how ineptly [we] have managed our ties with the world's most populous nation." --The Washington Post Book World

Drawing on hundreds of previously classified documents, scores of interviews, and his own experience, James Mann, former Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau chief, presents the fascinating inside story of contemporary U.S.-China relations.

President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger began their diplomacy with China in an attempt to find a way out of Vietnam. The remaining Cold War presidents saw China as an ally against the Soviet Union and looked askance at its violations of international principles. With the end of communism and China's continued human rights abuses, the U.S has failed to forge a genuinely new relationship with China. This is the essential story of contemporary U.S./China policy.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0679768610
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; 58863rd edition (February 15, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780679768616
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679768616
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 1.05 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 35 ratings

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  1. Jim Mann

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    James H. Mann

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Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
35 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Brunila Tom
5.0 out of 5 stars No problems
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2024
Verified Purchase
No problems with the order. The book was as described.
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zACH ELKIN
5.0 out of 5 stars good quality
Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2015
Verified Purchase
Ok, but I would not have read it if it were not for class.
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zorba
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book But Perhaps a Little Too Scholarly
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2010
Verified Purchase
I have no idea why I bought this book, not being a scholar of U.S. - China relations, but I found it interesting. However, I probably missed a lot not being an expert. What I found interesting, as a layman, was the degree to which one side tries to trump the other, as in a finely nuanced chess game. I found the book well-written and compelling as it described the relationship from the Nixon initiative up through the Clinton administration. It gives me a better foundation to understand the unique relationship between the two countries. I would imagine scholars will find it even more valuable.
One person found this helpful
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Mrs LC Pejic
5.0 out of 5 stars Can't put it down
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2014
Great book that spans over three decades. Quick and enjoyable read. If you are interested in learning more about China & USA relationship I suggest you read this book. It is a good start.
One person found this helpful
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David Sassen
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!
Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2000
Verified Purchase
I can't sing the praises of this book enough. Before I read this book, I knew next to nothing about Sino-US relations. A week afterwards, I was EXPLAINING them to others on the same level with a Taiwanese-born person!
3 people found this helpful
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Kate M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Best China read I've found in a long time.
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2009
I spend a large percentage of my time reading about and studying China, but I rarely find a book that captivates me like this one did. James Mann is very knowledgeable and insightful about U.S. - China relations. Since he used information newly available (at the time of the book's publication, in 1998) under the Freedom of Information act, his detailed research goes well beyond what you will find in the news and most books.

The best part about this book, however, is simply how well written it is. It is completely scholarly, yet it reads like a story. It's rare that I say this about a nonfiction book, but I couldn't put "About Face" down.
10 people found this helpful
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Eamonn Fingleton
5.0 out of 5 stars A Sharp Eye on China
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2002
If you want to know what is wrong with American policy towards China, there is no better place to start than James Mann's superb "About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, From Nixon to Clinton."
As a skilled journalist, Mann writes clearly and to the point. But this book is more than a journalistic tour de force. Mann has been following the China story since he was posted by the Los Angeles Times to Beijing in 1984 and his experience has produced a depth of knowledge unmatched by any academic China watcher I have read. That knowledge not only shines through in the main text but it is testified to in a notes section full of sources and corroborating detail.
What I particularly like about this book is its uncommon commonsense. Mann refuses to be swept off his feet by the "romance of China" -- a romance that repeatedly over the last century has discombobulated the thinking of American policy-makers, business executive, scholars and journalists. Stolidly eyeing the authoritarian reality behind all the fine words and sumptuous banquets that Beijing bestows on influential visitors, Mann constantly reminds us how sorry has been China's record on human rights in recent decades -- and how cravenly Washington has sought to sweep that record under the carpet.
This book is important too for its worldly wisdom in repeatedly showing the ease with which the Chinese system can manipulate America's money-driven and short-sighted political system. None of this is particularly surprising to those of us who have been watching U.S.-Japan relations in recent decades -- but it is rare for China experts (and still rarer for Japan experts) to highlight how the East runs rings around our Western democratic institutions.
Essentially this book is characterized throughout by a show-me attitude to the American intellectual community's vapid determinism on East Asia. As Mann repeatedly points out, China is far from being "bound" to converge towards Western values. Quite the reverse, thanks to the comprehensive mismanagement of American trade policy in the last fifteen years, China is now in a stronger position than ever to flaunt its rejection of those values.
First published in 1998, this book has already been around for a while. Don't be put off. "About Face" has no sell-by date. It is a modern classic.
-- Eamonn Fingleton, author of "In Praise of Hard Industries: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy, Is the Key to Future Prosperity ."
5 people found this helpful
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Reno Nevada Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Easy to Read and Stay Interested
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2014
Verified Purchase
I bought this book because I wanted to know more about the history of China with its relationships to the US presidents. This book is far more easier to read than America's Response To China. This book has a lot of information and does not make it long and boring. Good read. Just wished that the author would revise the book to include the latest presidents.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

W
4.0 out of 5 stars Useful book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
"About Face" recounts shifts in US policy towards China since Nixon's dramatic opening to China in the early 1970s. Mann shows that the opening was a strategic gambit meant to enlist China in America's Cold War with the Soviet Union. These geopolitical underpinnings were evidenced in the very nature of the Sino-American relationship in the 1970s, with its overriding emphasis on military cooperation and intelligence sharing. Even Jimmy Carter, for all his interest in advancing the cause of human rights worldwide, preferred to close his eyes to gross violations of human rights in China so as to avoid unnecessarily upsetting Beijing. Ronald Reagan, Mann argues, repeated Carter's mistake, for he entirely misinterpreted the direction of Chinese reforms, expecting that China would inevitably embrace freedom and democracy. All the greater was the shock of 1989, when it turned out that the Chinese leadership was after all not as open to ideas of political change as many Americans had come to believe. In the meantime, the end of the Cold War in 1989 removed the geopolitical imperative of striving to keep Beijing happy. Amid expectations of eventual collapse of the CCP, American policy towards China underwent a complete about-face, with human rights agenda, and its associated problems - like renewal of the MFN status - moving closer to the center. But America's outrage did not last. It soon transpired that China was too important to Washington in commercial terms to sustain economic sanctions: Bill Clinton, one of the early critics of Bush's "coddling of dictators" played the key role in delinking trade and human rights. American foreign policy underwent another change of direction.

Mann's criticism of US China policy is well articulated and often valid. It is less clear, though, what an alternative strategy should have been. Should the US have taken a keener interest in China's human rights record back in the 1970s? Should it have not made promises on Taiwan, as Nixon and Kissinger secretly did? Should Washington have avoided the shroud of secrecy in the conduct of negotiations with the PRC and have taken a greater notice of US public opinion? Mann does not explore these points in detail. In his effort to condemn Nixon/Kissinger and Carter/Brzezinski for their way of dealing with China, he does not see that the relationship developed by leaps and bounds precisely because policy makers in Washington were willing to set aside their ideological concerns and messianic zeal and speak to China on equal terms. It is far from clear that any other approach would have a chance to succeed. As for the idea that Reagan and others were blind to the real nature of Chinese Communism, suffice it to say that in the 1980s not just the Americans but even the Chinese leaders themselves were unclear about the trajectory of Chinese reforms. 1989 was a shock for America. But it was an even bigger shock for Beijing.

The last few chapters of the book are less interesting, primarily because Mann was writing about very recent events. In places the book reads more like a newspaper than a solid historical account. Moreover, the book was written at the height of America's "unilateral moment," and this had a certain, shall we say, ideological impact on the the author's perspective. In retrospect, US policy towards China actually looks better than Mann was willing to say. There may have been twists and turns but it's sometimes better to have a complete about-face than to persist in misguided policies. Not always but more often than not US policy makers - from Nixon to Clinton - realized that much.

The book is by now somewhat dated. Since its publication, thousands and thousands of new documents on Sino-American relations have become a part of the public domain. These documents and later accounts allow a much more nuanced understanding of the relationship than Mann could have had at the time of writing. Nevertheless, the book is a rich, well-written primer that in some respects has stood the test of time. Recommended for students of Sino-American relations and global politics.
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