Silk Road International Blog

This is one of my new favorite books on China.

Fantastic insight from someone who has been here for more than 30 years, Susan Shirk knows not only about China’s history and current political and economic situation but she knows the leaders, personally. Her insights into their fears, their decision making, their expectations and their historical chains are the most insightful and up-to-date that I’ve read on china—and I’ve read more than 30 books on China in the past couple of years.

If you want to know where the leaders of China are headed and why they’re taking China in that direction, Shirk can tell you. This isn’t just a book about politics and the personalities in office, it’s a book about how the people and the system affect the business decisions of the Chinese economy.

The book is filled with first hand accounts of the major events in China over the last few decades. Personal story after personal experience gives the events in China’s recent growth both personal insight and current applicability. Shirk was the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for US relations with China and is currently a Professor at UC-San Diego.

As the name implies, this book is certainly written with a cautious if not hesitant tone. But I find that in the current atmosphere of exploding stock markets and real estate bubbles, caution is good. I think that most investors in China and many SME’s that come here for business assume that money is money and business is business and China is open for business just like the West. This is not the case. Informed decision are always best—this book is the opportunity to inform yourself as to the nature of the worlds largest state controlled command economy.

Tags: Book Reviews by David Dayton
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Other than the title, which I think is misleading, I really like this book. Ross Terrill has been a “friend of China” for 40 years and his experience shows in this in depth narration of Chinese history and it’ modern implications. He tells a story of continuing Chinese empires in the modern Chinese Communist party. But if there is anything specific meaning for the US, you’ll have to find through inference and personal deduction. That shouldn’t take anything away from this great book, though. It’s just mislabeled.

The New Chinese Empire is a review of thousands of years of Chinese imperial thinking. It’s a look into the minds of leaders who, for centuries, have been concerned with “stability” and “harmony.” Ross describes how the Chinese see themselves, international relations, domestic politics and the historical march toward the (glorious) future in terms of both domestic (in)stability and China’s turbulent international history.

Due to his knowledge of Chinese history Terrill is able to clearly detail how current Chinese political decisions are based on past historical trends and events. For example, the fact that Communism (Leninism in particular) is heavily based on the historical dialectic feeds even more the historical determinism of the Chinese leaders.

Many bloggers and writers have recently been asking the questions like: is China’s ascension to world super power status as benign as the Beijing regime likes to claim? Terrill has a definitive answer—No, it’s not.

Terrill documents that historically the Chinese have asserted regional dominance in Asia and their current overt goals now are the same. They specifically want to be the “dominate influence in Asia” and their new policies for going abroad (specifically to Africa and the Middle East) are designed in a similar vein. China, as a government, as a people, as a historical dialectic, all aspire to be the Asia’s and eventually the World’s dominant power.

This book is a great read if you want to understand some more about Chinese politics, history and psychology. To that end there is much use in a business setting too. But like the specific meanings for the US that the title claims, what you get out of the book will be more deductive and personal than overtly detailed.

Tags: Book Reviews by David Dayton
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