Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The China Fantasy - James Mann


Two things sprung out to me on reading this book-

First, I would have hoped that the author could have made reference to cooption and paternalistic behavior by the Chinese government towards the urban middle class in China.

Second, I would have drawn a parallel between the mainstream of US society in the 1950s and the attitude of a significant portion of current mainland Chinese society towards democracy: as long as I have my money and raise my family, I don't feel a great need for politics.

The book takes a fairly deconstructivist approach towards US policies towards China: the author casts a discerning eye towards US policies of engagement and the hopes that economic growth will improve the level of democratic governance in China. The author discounts out of hand any long-range propositions on the part of the Chinese government to raise such levels as being mere window dressing- on the other hand, I am not yet 100% certain of this fact. The author recommends a closer level of scrutiny by Congress of the China-US relationship, but does not go into explicit detail beyond stating that human rights should be more heavily emphasized.

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