<p><strong>"A strong antidote to the growing sinophobia in the U.S."―Wall Street Journal</strong></p> Many see China and the United States on the path to confrontation. The Chinese leadership violates human rights norms. It maintains a harsh rule in Tibet, spars aggressively with Taiwan, and is clamping down on Hong Kong. A rising power with enormous assets, China increasingly considers American interests an obstacle to its own.<br><br> But, the authors argue, the United States is the least of China's problems. Despite its sheer size, economic vitality, and drive to upgrade its military forces, China remains a vulnerable power, crowded on all sides by powerful rivals and potential foes. As it has throughout its history, China faces immense security challenges, and their sources are at and within China's own borders. China's foreign policy is calibrated to defend its territorial integrity against antagonists who are numerous, near, and strong.<br><br> The authors trace the implications of this central point for China's relations with the United States and the rest of the world.

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

History

Nathan, Andrew

Asia

W.W.Norton&Company

<p><div>On January 1, 1912, the world's oldest, most populous empire bowed to the tide of history and became a republic. Since the American Revolution, one nation after another had adopted a constitution, often with remarkable regenerative results--Japan was the most impressive recent example. "The future of China is like building a railroad," Sun Yat-sen pointed out. "Should we use the first locomotive ever invented or today's improved and most efficient one?" Many Chinese expected a new China, with its up-to-date governmental machinery, to drive straight for national wealth and power.</div> <div>Sixteen years later the dream was rubble. The republic had shrunk to a fig-leaf marshal's government run by Chang Tso-lin. Years of warlord devastation had ruined the agriculture and disrupted the trade of North China, and a major famine was imminent. The Kuomintang was poised to complete national reunification under its own auspices, bringing a merciful end to an experiment that had dragged on too long.</div> <div>What went wrong? <i>Peking Politics</i> attempts to contribute to an understanding of that question by examining the workings of the Peking political system, showing how the informal political rules of factionalism undermined the formal political system of constitutionalism. This is not an attempt to explain why, in terms of larger economic, social, or cultural variables, a stable republic could not survive in China. It is an investigation rather of <i>how</i> constitutionalism failed, of the political processes that occurred under the early republic, and of how they undermined the new institutions in which such great hopes were placed.</div></p>

Peking Politics, 1918–1923: Factionalism and the Failure of Constitutionalism (Volume 81) (Michigan Monographs In Chinese Studies)

Americas

U OF M CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

<p>At the Chinese Communist Party's 16th Congress in November 2002, a group of new leaders took over the world's most populous country. Their accession as the "Fourth Generation" of rulers of the People's Republic—following the generations of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zemin—signaled the end of a long, complex struggle for power.</p>
<p>Yet little has been known outside high Party circles about either that struggle or the men who emerged victorious from it. <i>China's New Rulers</i>, based on confidential Party files leaked to a Chinese writer abroad, offers an unprecedented glimpse into the most orderly succession in the turbulent history of the People's Republic. At its center are detailed descriptions of the nine men who will rule China for the next five years—their backgrounds, their characters, and their visions for the future. Among the challenges they will face are economic reform and China's integration into a global economy, pressures for political liberalization and human rights, ethnic unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, the status of Taiwan, and relations with the US.</p>
<p><i>China's New Rulers</i> is an extraordinary account of a high-level political drama that has largely taken place in secret. It portrays many key figures in the Party, government, and military, and provides new information on Jiang Zemin's thirteen years in office. Most importantly, it contains the first insights into matters of great importance to the West: who will lead China, what changes they may bring to their country, and how they may act as international partners and competitors.</p>

China's New Rulers: The Secret Files; Second, Revised Edition

Gilley, Bruce

New York Review Books

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