In the International Herald Tribune, Richard Bernstein writes about the debates inspired by James Mann’s book, The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression:
…Because Mann’s book accuses China policy makers of a kind of broken promise, it seems to have generated an especially angry response on the Internet and in such specialty journals as The China Quarterly, which published a lengthy exchange between Mann and David Lampton, a leading figure on China who is also at the School for Advanced International Studies.
Mann also touches what may be a sore point in stressing that, with a few exceptions – Nathan one of the most prominent among them – China scholars and policy makers have tended to be rather silent on Chinese human rights abuses, though many of them say that they bring these matters up forcefully with Chinese officials in private.
And this, in turn, has long been part of a complicated debate about how to apportion priorities on China. Administration after administration has come to power in Washington pledged to be tougher on China only to retreat once it needed China’s cooperation on other matters. [Full text]
See also CDT’s interview with Mann about his book, and a debate between Mann and David Lampton.
