Product Description

From The New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Vulcans, an exploration of Chinese authoritarianism and Western capitalism

In The China Fantasy, bestselling author James Mann examines the evolution of American policy toward China and asks, Does it make sense? What are our ideas and hidden assumptions about China? In this vigorous look at China’s political evolution and its future, Mann explores two scenarios popular among the policy elite. The Soothing Scenario contends that the successful spread of capitalism will gradually bring about a development of democratic institutions, free elections, independent judiciary, and a progressive human rights policy. In the Upheaval Scenario, the contradictions in Chinese society between rich and poor, between cities and the countryside, and between the openness of the economy and the unyielding Leninist system will eventually lead to a revolution, chaos, or collapse.

Against this backdrop, Mann poses a third scenario and asks, What will happen if Chinese capitalism continues to evolve and expand but the government fails to liberalize? What then and why should this third scenario matter to Americans? Mann explores this alternate possibility and—in this must-read book for anyone interested in international politics—offers a startling vision of our future with China that will have a profound impact for decades to come.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #372441 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Margaret MacMillan

James Mann is a distinguished journalist and historian who covered China for the Los Angeles Times; his 1999 book, About Face, was a first-rate account of the troubled path of U.S.-Chinese relations after President Richard M. Nixon's decision to open contacts with the communist government, and his 2004 bestseller, Rise of the Vulcans, explored President Bush's war cabinet. In The China Fantasy, he now adds polemicist to his resume.

As this angry, lively little book makes clear, Mann has had enough! His main target is all those American policymakers -- aided and abetted by big business, the media and Beltway think tanks -- who have sold a bill of goods to the American people. Since Nixon first made his historic trip to Beijing in 1972, Mann charges, American elites have dispensed soothing and dangerously misleading nostrums to the public. Yes, China under the control of the Communist Party is somewhat authoritarian -- even, if you want to be rude, a totalitarian state. But that state of affairs, Americans are reassured, can't last forever. At some point, perhaps quite soon, China's dramatic economic development will inevitably lead to democracy as its growing middle class demands more rights and freedoms. Meanwhile, and confusingly, comes a set of warnings that China is more fragile than it seems and that if we don't all handle it with kid gloves, it could collapse into chaos and civil war, as it has done so often before.

Consequently, Mann argues, foreign critics of China's human rights abuses are told not to be so outspoken. After all, there is no point in hurting Chinese feelings or making the Chinese authorities dig in their heels. Mann is particularly scathing about what he describes as the "Lexicon of Dismissal." Criticism of China is dismissed as "bashing," "provocative" or "anti-China" (a favorite of the Chinese themselves), and any such censure always runs the risk of turning China into an enemy.

In his anger over this muzzling trend, Mann comes close to seeing a conspiracy by well-meaning but self-serving American elites -- with, of course, the happy acquiescence of the Chinese communists -- to keep the United States investing in and trading with China.

The China Fantasy raises an awkward and important question: What if there is a third alternative between the rise of democracy and the collapse of China's political order? What if that alternative is the survival of the one-party state, with all its apparatus of control and repression? In an era when capitalists can join the party built by Mao, the Chinese communists have already shown how adept they are at changing their spots. What would it mean for the United States -- and, indeed, the world -- if 20 or 30 years from now a much richer and more powerful China proved to be every bit as authoritarian a state as it is today? What if that China were one in which the middle classes decided, much as they did in Hitler's Germany, to opt for stability and prosperity over democracy?

Mann thinks that scenario highly likely, even if he does not share the alarmist view now taking root in some Washington circles that China is going to challenge the United States militarily. His concern is both that an undemocratic China is bad for the Chinese themselves and that it will be bad for the world, giving comfort and even support to other unsavory regimes as it already does to that of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. What seems to outrage him most, though, is that the American people are going to go on being deceived.

Like all good polemics, this one raises more questions than it answers. Can the Chinese Communist Party, which now numbers some 70 million people, really be as monolithic or as cunning as he suggests? Is the American establishment really of one mind on China? Is there no possibility of the Chinese middle classes, or at least part of them, joining forces with the country's long-suffering peasants to push for greater democracy? We will have to wait and see, but, in the meantime, Mann has done a fine job of making sure that we won't do so complacently.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From AudioFile
Once a journalist living in China, the author changes his point of reference to describe China as the outside world sees it. For example, he explores how we ignore Chinas political repression and one-party system in our zeal to trade with her. Narrator Jeff Riggenbachs deep voice reads the material straight from the page. His no frills style and perfect diction never drop or mispronounce a word, allowing listeners to concentrate on the information. What little Chinese he must pronounce--the names of leaders and large cities--gives him no pause and is of minor importance. Readers will learn hardly anything about China itself but will hear many ideas about how a totalitarian state thrives in an increasingly globalized economy. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About the Author
James Mann is author in residence at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and the author of Rise of the Vulcans, About Face, and Beijing Jeep. He was previously the Los Angles Times Beijing bureau chief.

Customer Reviews

Worthy Opinion, but Lacking in the Facts Department
I'll keep this short and sweet:

Mann offers a lot of sobering thoughts, and his narrative is very straight-shooting. He calls things as he sees them, given his experience and qualifications, he's worth listening to. Any China expert should read this book, but then again, any China expert probably has.

The problem I have with this book is that Mann takes his case for granted. He provides no hard evidence to support his claims besides a dollar amount here or a name there. For better or for worse, it reads like a long editorial.

Expect to be enlightened, but not to be educated. I would implore anybody who reads this to complement it with something of more substance and objectivity.

Perspective
In 'The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression,' author James Mann reminds us in no uncertain terms of the forest that has been obscured by the trees; despite three and a half decades of catch phrases ("engagement," "integration," etc.) and speech after rhetoric-filled speech on behalf of various US presidents, secretaries of state, etc. to the tune that free market reform will inexorably lead to political reform, China is still run by a ruthless Leninist clique and there is NO evidence to suggest this will change in the foreseeable future.

They say the best books tell you what you already know and perhaps that's why I enjoyed this forceful, well documented, and relentlessly logical little tome so much. Although it's easy to see that Western leaders are now kowtowing to Beijing in order maintain trade, Mann helps to fill in quite a few blanks. He points out, for example, that China analysts based in the US are often sponsored by the very corporations that need America's citizenry to believe in the "China fantasy." Mann also asks some very tough questions, such as: if China is still an autocracy in two or three decades will that a.) mean that "engagement" (or whatever they call it in the future) will have failed? And b.) Will it really be in the US's best interest to still be dealing with such a government at that time?

I thought this book was excellent, but I wish it had been a little wider in scope. Mann plots the history of China-US relations but only goes as far back as the Nixon years. I believe that America's belief that change in China is inevitable is rooted in the Roosevelt years when the country was taken in by Chiang Kai-shek's conversion to Christianity and the tireless campaign of his Macon, Georgia educated (and Christian, of course) wife Soong Mei-ling. I also think that the author should have widened the scope beyond the US. For example, in Canada, demonstrators who assembled to protest a visit by Jiang Zemin were pepper sprayed by the national police acting under direct order from the (Liberal Party) prime minister, Jean Chretian. In England, there were similar incidents when protesters had their signs unlawfully confiscated, also during a visit from Jiang. Jiang berated his hosts for not being able to control their own populace before paradoxically demanding to know whether he "looked like a dictator." Members of the British govermnet and royal family made this up to Jiang later by singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" in his honor. Perhaps the author believed that such examples (he gives many examples of American complicity and naivety) would dilute his argument, but if done well it could have reinforced it. (That said, it's solid enough.) In any case, one wonders just how far backward Western leaders and decision makers are willing to bend in order to accommodate China - not only in the US, but in all the Western world. Time will certainly tell.

Troy Parfitt, author

stretched out magazine article, but some excellent information
I have read over a dozen books on China recently, and Mann goes into detail on one important aspect that no one else mentions: how our own government officials are being bought out and corrupted by China. He names names and dollar figures on the many American political leaders who have left office and gone directly onto the payroll of China as 'consultants' paid to use their US govt contacts to made introductions. No wonder our government is unwilling to take action re China's hold on our Treasury Bills and economy as a strategic threat or do something about all their predatory economic practices. For example, their economic miracle is based on undercutting the prices of their competition - but China has falsely set their currency exchange rate below actual market values. We complain and do nothing. Why? Could it be because every China expert in the State department retires and becomes a consultant in the pay of China? Some famous names who now work for China as 'consultants' - Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger, William Cohen (Clinton's defense secretary), Republican Carla Hills (the US Trade Rep), REpublican Brent Snowcroft (national security advisor to Bush senior).

Other than this very interesting insight, I found Mann is a lazy researcher and this books largely reads like a padded magazine article. He tends to make assertions without going into the facts in enough detail to make them persuasive -even when he is correct. For example, he mentions China's harmful role in international politics, but doesn't give the actual stories - that they are the suppliers of missile technology to Iran for example, and are aggressively pursuing oil stakes in the Middle East by arming every despotic regime that more responsible nations are shunning.

If the thesis of China becoming neither democractic nor falling apart interests you, there is a highly intelligent in-depth analysis called China's Trapped Transition. The Limits of Developmental Autocracy.