China: Fragile Superpower | 
 enlarge | Author: Susan L. Shirk
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 25703
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0195373197
Dewey Decimal Number: 951
EAN: 9780195373196
ASIN: 0195373197
Publication Date: August 15, 2008
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Product Description
Once a sleeping giant, China today is the world's fastest growing economy--the leading manufacturer of cell phones, laptop computers, and digital cameras--a dramatic turn-around that alarms many Westerners. But in China: Fragile Superpower, Susan L. Shirk opens up the black box of Chinese politics and finds that the real danger lies elsewhere--not in China's astonishing growth, but in the deep insecurity of its leaders. China's leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today's Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think--and what they fear. In this revealing book, readers see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world. Indeed, ever since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, Chinese leaders have been afraid of its own citizens, and this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the U.S. and other nations. In particular, the fervent nationalism of the Chinese people, combined with their passionate resentment of Japan and attachment to Taiwan, have made relations with this country a minefield. The paperback edition features a new preface by the author.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 this book doesn't undertand China at all November 8, 2008
As a chinese student, before I read it ,I think it must be very interesting.But after read it ,I feel disappoint. The point is thatthis book has totally misunderstood China. Just for one example, from page 61-64, the author talks about student unrest and nationalism. The biggest mistake she made is that she based her ideas soley on her own experience and the newspaper she read in China. But what happen really inside China is not that simple.I'm a college student at the time when the anti-japan begins.We didn't go out demonstrating because we believe most students who are going out are just pro communist party people and they don't know about freedom. The students the author talks about doesn't represent the true brilliant students who had inherited the freedom and demorcrany spirt of the 1989 June 4. The reason why the author don't know is because generally pro- demorcrany and pro- American students don't want to express their political opinion freely in China. The author write about the students who chase her and blame American, but she can't conculde that all students are that way. Also she talks about Harvard CHinese studets, but many of them are just don't know anything, many students who go to Harvard are studying sicence, they are easily misled by Chinese goverment. The author can't conclude that just because she saw students who are nationalism, all students are nationalism. Many of the students are still very rationle, they know how to treat things.DO remember that many chinese students still know what's right from wrong.They know June 4th,1989,although goverment ban people talking about thus many students today don't know.
The author made other mistakes well. A people from China like me really don't think she knows China too well,especiall grass root opinion.She just knows the surface of China,only see offical newspaper,meet offical students and professors, watch offical TV and then translate them into ENglish.Sorry maybe my words are too harsh but that just becaue I think this book misundertood China too much.
 Subduing Bellicosity June 22, 2008
As many others have intricately described the particular subjects that are adroitly dealt with in this book, I will spend my time touting one of its primary virtues.
China is oft portrayed as a monolithic power -- a Communist behemoth in the process of ascending to parity with the United States, and thereby posing an existential threat to all we hold dear. Many are the pundits and politicos that ramp up various and sundry fears of the Middle Kingdom and its 1.3 billion, whether regarding economic or military issues.
This book does yeomen work in presenting to the average American a balanced view of China. Yes, China is rising; who could doubt that? But it is not on an inexorable collision course with the west. In fact, China has a great many problems of its own that it will have to deal with in the years ahead, so much so that to think that China is looking toward the day when it can challenge America for global supremacy is prima facie absurd. What's more likely the case, as Susan Shirk shows, is China's leaders are above all else concerned about their (surprisingly) tenuous hold on power, and care not a fig for surpassing the United States in per capita GDP or in military spending EXCEPT IN SO FAR AS IT WILL PRESERVE THEIR POSITIONS OF PROMINENCE.
In conclusion, hats off to Dr. Shirk for an excellent and well documented work, and for doing -- unwittingly or not -- her service to preserve peace.
Subtitle better suits the contents of the book June 16, 2008
Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Susan L. Shirk has provided a solid book on several of the key domestic and international pressures facing China today. The insights gained from her life experiences set this book apart from many others. Although the last chapter seems as if it was tagged on after-the-fact at the request of an editor, Ms. Shirk stays true to her central theme of public opinion and fear of losing Party control as the driving forces in all of the Chinese government's decisions, domestic and international.
Impressively Truthful June 6, 2008
This book exams the Chinese society very objectively and pinpoints the weaknesses China has, regardless how much it has developed in recent years and how strong people think China is. If you want to know the truth about China, this book is worth reading.
 Well-premised but disappointingly shallow May 8, 2008
According to Susan Shirk, China's leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous their country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel. Economic growth and development have unleashed forces that have made it harder for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to maintain control. These domestic anxieties compel leaders to act in two very different ways. China generally behaves like a cautious, responsible power preoccupied with its own domestic problems and intent on avoiding conflicts that would disrupt economic growth and social stability. However, whenever the public pays close attention to an issue, leaders feel like they have to stand tough in order to demonstrate the strength of the regime; thus, high-attention conflicts with Japan, Taiwan, and the United States present the most troubling opportunities for conflict.
Shirk's analysis is notable for going against the grain of a plethora of popular works predicting China's imminent rise to the top of the global order; she concludes that the PRC is a brittle authoritarian regime that fears its own citizens and can only bend so far to accommodate the demands of foreign governments. She points out that Chinese leaders are not invulnerable to their own people merely because the latter lack the right to vote. In addition, she goes to great pains to demystify the "black box" of Chinese elite politics, striving to avoid the trap of referring to the leadership as an omniscient authoritarian powerhouse. That being said, it is surprising that Shirk still tends to refer to "China's leaders" as a coherent body of individuals. She assumes that the factors she has identified affect all leaders' expectations and strategic calculations in a uniform fashion, an assertion that seems problematic at best and somewhat at odds with her personalistic descriptions of the forces driving elite interactions.
In the end, the author accomplishes her goal of getting readers to empathize with the problems of Chinese leaders, but she may also overstate her case. Is China really as brittle as she thinks? The Chinese regime has been marked by astonishing resilience, which suggests that it may not be entirely paralyzed by problems of dealing with public opinion and rising nationalism. On another general note, while Shirk often compellingly uses her experiences as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State to illuminate backroom politics and mysterious political figures, she also frequently falls into the trap of making generalizations from anecdotal or thinly-related evidence. For example, she makes claims such as, "[the CCP's] number one priority will always be the preservation of Communist Party rule," following up with less-than-credible evidence such as, "I learned this lesson...when I played the role of China's top leader in an unclassified `simulation'" (p. 8). Despite the fact that this work was written for a popular audience, it seems that Shirk should give her readers a little more credit and offer up more compelling proof of her arguments. Given that the author is also an academic who has studied China for over three decades, this does not seem to be an unreasonable demand. It is disappointing that Shirk failed to use her potentially powerful combination of academic expertise and policy experience to push this question further. That being said, this book provides an interesting, quick, and informative read for the non-China specialist and helps to create a more balanced picture of the problems that China faces as a rising power.
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