Modern America’s power is often calculated in material terms, from the size and strength of its military to the scale of its corporate assets. But everything I have learned convinces me that these are finally reflections of the country’s success in attracting and enabling human talent. That success, in turn, has depended on the fortunate interaction of many different circumstances, rules, and decisions.

[...]In its pluses and its minuses, everything about this approach — the approach that has created the world’s reigning power of the moment — is fundamentally different from the principles behind the rise of the aspirant great power, China. America’s challenge is strangely conservative: Somehow it has to avoid destroying the cultural conditions that have been so important to its growth.

[...]From the Chinese government’s point of view, soft power has so far boiled down to using money to win other people’s goodwill or acquiescence. Chinese-built roads in Africa and Latin America; Chinese investment and interaction in Europe and the United States. The public-opinion elements of the soft-power campaign have often backfired, since they have been crudely propagandistic in the fashion of the government’s internal news management.

Even before the bad publicity China suffered with the jailing of Liu Xiaobo and the Jasmine crackdowns, a scholar from the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Johan Lagerkvist, argued that China would likely lose more and more international support unless the government fundamentally reconceived its connections with the rest of the world. “China’s internal stability/security and survival of the Communist Party will always be more important to China’s leaders than the image it projects for outside consumption,” he contended. A choice between maintaining domestic order and pleasing outside critics was no choice at all. “Pouring money into Chinese equivalents to CNN and Al-Jazeera won’t help [without] reform initiatives,” he said.[...]

For more on China’s soft power, see recent CDT coverage of Joseph Nye Jr. on China’s soft power deficit.

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Post tags: James Fallows, soft power, the chinese dream
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Chen weaves a fascinating story, detailing the attempts of successive Shanghai governments to “clean up” the city by eliminating straw-hut shantytowns, and the resistance those efforts sparked. Hut-dwellers formed an association and submitted petitions arguing for their right to preserve the community, even offering to pay taxes and thereby making their residence legitimate. In one late-1930s confrontation with the Shanghai Municipal Council (composed of British and American representatives overseeing their countries’ territory in the city), the hut-dwellers accepted that some shanties would be demolished, but successfully negotiated that their owners would be compensated for their loss.

In the 1930s, observers of the shantytown dispute recognized that “The city’s prosperity had been built on the backs of these rickshaw pullers, peddlers, and laborers” and it was therefore unfair to treat them so dismissively. Today, we see that once again, China’s cities have filled with migrant workers who occupy a precarious place in the urban hierarchy: while urbanites appreciate their labor, they are less enthusiastic about the migrants’ presence in their cities.

But as in the 1930s, rural-to-urban migrants are unlikely to give up easily. The hukou reform that would facilitate this push to build a better life in the city will almost assuredly be hard-won, but judging from the life sketches that Loyalka draws, China’s migrant workers are up for the fight. They are, after all, quite familiar with what it means to eat bitterness.

See more on China’s migrant workers via CDT.

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Post tags: book reviews, history, hukou, migrant workers, Shanghai
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Being a migrant in China is a bit like being an illegal immigrant in California. Essentially, when Chinese people move from the countryside to the city, they leave the benefits of citizenship behind ….

In “Eating Bitterness: Stories From the Front Lines of China’s Great Urban Migration,” Michelle Dammon Loyalka chronicles their inner lives. She chooses eight migrants living in one neighborhood of Xi’an, the city in northwestern China famous for terra-cotta warriors.

What she finds is fascinating: The nanny loves the spoiled toddler she works for more than her own children, who are stuck back in the countryside until they finish school; the knife-sharpening peddler can’t get used to city prices, and impossibly saves three-quarters of his meager income; the innkeeper, returning to her hometown, is preoccupied with keeping her black leather pants clean, next to neighbors washing clothes in the river. She looks down on them and no longer fits in there, but has yet to assimilate to the city. Loyalka writes about people in limbo.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom discussed the book with Loyalka at The China Beat last month:

JW: Novelists are often asked if they have a favorite fictional character, so I wonder if you have a favorite among the people you profile … as someone to write about? I guess that’s really a way of asking if you have a favorite chapter in the book?

MDL: That’s a tough one. Everyone I talked to had such a different story to tell, and I find each one so compelling in its own way. But if I had to choose a favorite I’d probably pick Chapter 8, “The Big Boss.” It’s about a 32-year old second-grade dropout who’s amassed a small fortune, only to find himself more lonely and dissatisfied than he ever was as a poor man. He longs to turn his focus toward philanthropy, but those around him find this desire completely incomprehensible.

To me his story really does represent the direction China is heading. In recent decades Chinese have focused on material progress to such an extent that anything else is seen as a distraction. But as conditions around the country continue to improve, people are gradually reassessing that mindset. There’s a real restlessness that’s starting to set in, and “distractions” like religion, volunteerism and social activism are all on the rise. As China’s economy continues to rocket ahead, that search for a purpose beyond sheer material prosperity is only going to grow.

Michelle Dammon Loyalka will discuss the book at a series of events around the US in the coming weeks. April Rabkin was awarded the Asia Society Osborn Elliott Journalism Prize this month for her writing on recycling tycoon Chen Guangbiao, the role of social networking in China, and a group of elite Beijing high school students.

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Post tags: book reviews, entrepreneurs, migrant workers, migrants, urban life, urban rural divide
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China’s rise is a commonplace of our times. The last major state on earth ruled by a Communist party appears set to dominate the planet, surpassing an anaemic west and owning the 21st century. After the temporary economic downturn of 2008, its growth has soared once more to make it the planet’s second biggest economy. Everything about it is huge, starting with its 1.3 billion people. Its Communist party is the planet’s biggest political movement; it contains 55% of the world’s pigs; its people smoke 38% of the cigarettes consumed on earth ….

The reality is that, as it prepares for a wholesale change of leadership starting later this year, the People’s Republic faces fundamental tests which will determine if it is able to continue its upwards trajectory or will be caught by the deep flaws in its system – political, economic and social ….

Despite all these fault lines, China is not going to collapse; it is far too resilient for that. Its growth has made more people materially better off in a shorter space of time than ever before in human history and this breeds loyalty to a system. But two things are clear. It does not provide a model for the rest of the world as its admirers might wish, and the danger now is that, unless Xi Jinping and his colleagues in the new politburo undertake serious reform, China will be stuck in an increasingly outdated groove, out of tune with its needs and aspirations.

Fenby surveyed China’s options in The Spectator last month:

It can turn left in the direction of even more party control and state power. That was Bo Xilai’s route, which now seems to be blocked. Or it can veer right by helping private companies which have been squeezed by privileged state enterprises and embarking on a major programme of reform. This is sorely needed. Deng’s revolution remains incomplete and, in many ways, has been scaled back by the expansion of the state since the 1990s ….

The probability is that China will take the middle road, continuing on a course with which its leaders are familiar. There will be change — the new Five-Year Plan provides for rebalancing the economy towards consumption and for a move up the technology chain. But progress will be slow. An official from the Party School remarked to me that the move away from dependence on exports and investment in property and infrastructure would take ten years. Muddling through, albeit at 7 to 8 per cent annual growth, will be the order of the day.

The snag is that China may be running out of time.

Fenby’s new book, ‘Tiger Head, Snake Tails‘, aims to provide “a one-stop overview of China’s politics, economics, society, international relations, history, environmental issues, corruption and new leadership.” It has received positive reviews from former governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, at The Financial Times, and from author Julia Lovell at The Guardian:

No single book could ever describe the full complexity of contemporary China, and Fenby has made tough but judicious decisions about what to leave out. Perhaps the most regrettable omission, though, is the neglect of Chinese culture. Although the pace of life in China can often seem too frenetic to permit anyone to settle down long enough to write, film or paint anything, its flourishing literary, cinema and art scenes offer fragmentary but intensely individual insights into this confounding country – a welcome counterbalance to the big headline stories about industry, GDP, diplomacy and political succession. But as a one-stop guide to political and economic realities in China today, Tiger Head, Snake Tails is fast-moving, informed and illuminating.

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Post tags: Bo Xilai, book reviews, chris patten, reform debate, Xi Jinping
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The story starts with a group of British journalists trying to film a report on the Chinese government’s ‘fight against environmental depredation’. Destined for a short slot in a programme sponsored by the government, it is not supposed to be critical. All their employers want is something pointing out the ‘new China’ for their coverage of the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen Square. The journalists are being carefully escorted by their Chinese minder, Chun-Li, and everything is going to plan, until they end up by accident in the desert town of Tang Lu and get some film of residents complaining about the appalling environmental conditions. From there, it all starts to spiral out of control.

Mason, who also released the book Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions earlier this year, told The Guardian about 10 works from China’s recent literary history that have influenced his latest work:

“If you’re trying to understand China the language issues are secondary. The real problem is this is a country ruled through the suppression of historical memory. The Communists’ legitimacy rests on the claim that only stultifying bureaucracy and patriarchy can keep it together; that it is “not ready” for democracy; indeed that it was never ready.

“But delve into Chinese literature, and history, and a more much more complex picture emerges. After the May Fourth 1919 protests, the intelligentsia embraced modernity and fought for it. The early 20th century produced the Chinese Dickens and a whole legion of Orwells. The late 20th century produced a generation of novelists whose sufferings during the Cultural Revolution pushed them towards everything from magic realism to cyberpunk…”

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Post tags: history, literature, Paul Mason, writers
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In October we saw the 100th anniversary of the 1911 revolution that overthrew China’s imperial dynasty. Today we’re taking a “book tour”, if you will, through the last century of Chinese history. What legacy of the 1911 revolution and its vision for a modern nation can we see in China today, or have the changes of the 20th century been so dramatic that there is none?

One of the ironies a century on from the revolution of 1911 is that in some ways China is a completely different country from what it was a century ago – everything from the skyscrapers of Shanghai to the massive development of rural areas in western China – and yet many of the problems that the revolutionaries of 1911 were trying to solve are still very relevant to China today.

The questions of what is the Chinese nation state – is it an empire, a republic? – and how does the government relate to its people are questions that are very pressing at the present day, and were in the minds of the 1911 revolutionaries as well. The sense of social crisis is very real [today]. If you go out into the countryside, the growing economy has kept people at least reasonably happy in some parts of the country, but more broadly speaking it’s clear that there is a lot of social discontent and perhaps a downturn in the economy could create another social crisis for today’s government.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: book reviews, five books, history
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In two dozen essays and 15 poems written between 1989 and 2009 and a document collection showing Mr. Liu’s path through the courts and into jail, the book offers “one of the most impressive analyses of China today,” as well as an important warning to those hoping the cash-rich country can “save” the world economy, Perry Link, one of three editors, said by telephone.

“The image of China in the West is superficial compared to Liu Xiaobo’s,” said Mr. Link, a leading scholar of modern Chinese literature at the University of California, Riverside.

“He sees the problems, the corruption, the bullying. There is the China that the Communist Party runs, that has so much money and might try to save the euro, and wants to take over the South China Sea, and then what he’s really talking about, the ordinary people and the ordinary problems from below,” he said.

Read more by and about Liu Xiaobo via CDT.

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In a series of three interviews with Paul Evans, Ezra Vogel addresses the origins of his book, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. He discusses its construction and provides insights into the character, career, and impact of the man who more than any other shaped contemporary China.

The interviews were recorded during Professor Vogel’s visit to UBC when he spoke about the impact of Deng’s international connections beginning with his time in France in the 1920s.

See part one of the interview, in which Vogel discusses why he decided to begin writing Deng’s biography. In part two, Vogel speaks about what shaped Deng as a leader. Also, Inside-Out China provides a thoughtful roundup of many reviews of the book. For more about the book see The Skeleton’s in Deng’s Closet from the CDT Bookshelf.

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Deng led a long and remarkable life, packed with drama and global significance, one that deserves to be dissected in detail. So we must be thankful to Harvard professor Ezra Vogel for devoting a large chunk of his academic career to compiling a prodigious biography, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, the most ambitious account of the man so far. In writing this volume, Vogel has done an enormous amount of work. He appears to have absorbed the documents from every single Chinese Communist Party plenum since 1921. (I can’t say I envy him the task, but hey, someone’s got to do it.)

There have been several Deng biographies before this — from the curmudgeonly Benjamin Yang, the suave ex-diplomat Richard Evans, the meticulous analyst Michael Marti — but Vogel’s can be regarded as the most comprehensive and informative of the lot. (Maurice Meisner wrote a book of marvelous verve about Deng and his era, but it doesn’t actually contain that much in the way of biography.) Vogel has left no stone unturned, and this is mostly a good thing. But sometimes — in a 928-page book with chapter titles like “Economic Readjustment and Rural Reform, 1978-1982″ — it wears. If you want to know the particulars of Deng’s career, you’ll be well-served here; if you want to know his life, you might find this book a bit frustrating. Vogel would probably object that it is the career that matters most, and of course that’s true — up to a point. But a biography, by the very nature of the beast, should also be a story — preferably one that doesn’t pull its punches. Brutal candor is a vital literary device. William Taubman set the standard with his fantastically well-researched yet bracingly sarcastic portrait of Khrushchev. Vogel, by contrast, is a bit too quick to skip over the rougher, blacker sides of his hero’s past. The massive ambiguities, the jaw-dropping plot twists, the spicy Sichuanese reek of an unlikely life never quite filter through.

Vogel has been traveling to China since the 1960s, and over the years he has cultivated close relationships with Deng’s relatives and leading members of the Chinese Communist Party, a level of access that has unquestionably enriched the book. When Vogel reveals something truly fresh about his subject, it’s usually not because of a document, but rather because insiders have shared their views. My favorite quote comes from Deng’s youngest son: “My father thinks Gorbachev is an idiot.”

Read a previous review of the book by John Pomfret in the Washington Post via CDT.

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Post tags: book reviews, Deng Xiaoping, PRC history
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“In the beginning I had seen the village as an escape, a place where I could hike and write in peace; but now I went there for different reasons. In China it was the closest I ever came to home.” Eventually, “after four years, Sancha felt as familiar as any place I had known during adulthood,” and “the longer I stayed in Sancha, the more I appreciated the rhythm of the countryside, the way that life moved through the cycles of the seasons. . . . Progress had arrived: each year led to some new major change, and always there was the sense of time rushing ahead. But the regularity of the seasons helped me keep my bearings.”

Hessler’s account of his years in Sancha is for me the highlight of “Country Driving,” but that in no way diminishes my admiration for the other two sections. In the first, “The Wall,” he takes a couple of car trips through places along the routes of various sections of the Great Wall — in fact it is not a single wall but a mishmash of many, built over the centuries primarily to resist Mongol invaders — that are rapidly emptying out as people rush from the country to the city. There is much here about the urbanization of China, a phenomenon far more vast and unsettling than most of us in the West understand, but there is also wonderful stuff about Chinese rental cars, speed traps, license-exam questions and the drivers themselves.

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Post tags: book reviews, peter hessler
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