Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China's Search for Security by Andrew J. Nathan, Robert S. Ross ISBN: 0-393-31784-6 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: July, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (8 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: useful but flawed
Comment: National security is a term we're used to hearing in the United States, but with rare exception "security threats" are in fact threats to America's vast informal empire abroad (military bases, troop deployments, the security of client regimes and business interests). As Ross and Nathan ably show, this is emphatically not the case for China. Even though "China is stronger today and its borders more secure than at any other time in the last 150 years", it continues to face a bewildering array of vulnerabilities -- from internal unrest to border insecurity to economic instability.
This book is a good corrective to the growing right-wing trend of playing up the "China threat". Ross and Nathan make clear that China's goals are not particularly ambitious and their capabilities so limited that even if the sinister cabal of Communists plotting against America's beneficent reign were real, it would be hard pressed to act out its evil intentions. Chapter 8, in particular, demolishes the idea that China's military will any time soon provide a real challenge to Japan, much less the USA.
Despite the great service Ross and Nathan provide in refuting the containment school's arguments, this book also has basic problems. Because it is a survey, the authors can only superficially treat each of the many issues raised. They do a good job of integrating history and current events, and the book should be quite useful for those mostly unfamiliar with its topics, but for those with more detailed knowledge it will often by unsatisfying.
Second, the authors use the national security paradigm to orient their analysis, but seem unaware of the drawbacks to such an approach. "National" security indulges the false idea that all groups and individuals within a nation can share the same interests and that national leaders act, fundamentally, on behalf of the whole population. In reality security policies generally hurt the interests of some groups while advancing those of others, and China's leaders act to perpetuate their own power and the power of the Communist Party, and to protect the interests of the increasingly influential business elite. The authors' inability to consider such matters leads them to seriously downplay the ruling class's increasing economic exploitation of workers and its violent domination of ethnically non-Han peoples in East Turkestan/Xinjiang, Tibet/Xizang, and Inner Mongolia.
And finally, the authors approach the subject from the perspective of the engagement school, which has both strengths (discussed above) and very serious weaknesses. Proponents of engagement are ideologically incapable of seeing that the current global economic system is based on inequality, exploitation, and the denial of people's basic needs (food, health care, shelter) and that it is upheld by American military domination of other people. Ross and Nathan's ultimate recommendation, then, is that China be safely integrated into this system -- not because doing so will help the Chinese people, but because doing so removes a threat to the safe operation of a fundamentally unjust world order.
Rating: 5
Summary: reveals the vulnerability of the people's republic of china
Comment: Nathan and Ross have constructed an excellent book discussing the vulnerability of China. The book goes into great depth discussing issues such as: Taiwanese independence, nuclear proliferation, the strength of the chinese military, the necessity of U.S. intervention in Asia, the relationships existing between China and Japan or the two Koreas, Tibetan freedom, technological exchange with Pakistan. Ultimately, Nathan and Ross conclude that China is a weak and vulnerable country that is more concerned with maintaining its borders and internal stability than initiated a policy of imperialism. This book is a great edition for any student of Asian Politics. Easy to read.
Rating: 5
Summary: Must read for students of contemporary China
Comment: Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ross's THE GREAT WALL AND THE EMPTY FORTRESS is a clearly and tightly written presentation of Chinese foreign policy and defense issues. It is as reliable in its treatment of aspects of the pre-modern Chinese state and society that impinged on the course of modern Chinese affairs as it is authoritative (and well documented) in its analysis of the contemporary Chinese situation. With books on contemporary Chinese affairs, one must be concerned with material becoming dated, but though this book is some four years old in content, nearly its entirety is nevertheless very relevant. Its treatment of Chinese-Taiwan relations, for instance, is still on the mark. Since the book was written before the restoration of Hong Kong to China, the reader will not be able to glean anything new about that situation here. However that may be, this book remains as "must reading" for any student of contemporary China. The reader will happily discover that the style is eminently readable.
 |
Title: The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-2000 by David M. Lampton ISBN: 0804740569 Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: Interpreting China's Grand Strategy : Past, Present and Future by Michael D. Swaine, Ashley J. Tellis ISBN: 0833027670 Publisher: RAND Pub. Date: 01 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
 |
Title: Modernizing China's Military : Progress, Problems, and Prospects by David Shambaugh ISBN: 0520225074 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
 |
Title: Mao's China and the Cold War by Jian Chen, Chen Jian ISBN: 0807849324 Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr Pub. Date: June, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S. China Relations, 1989-2000 by David M. Lampton ISBN: 0520234626 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
