The China Fantasy—BOOK REVIEW

If you’re not ready to face the reality of China’s future and your involvement in that future, don’t read this book.  If you’re comfortable with the idea that China is not “changing” in all the ways that the western democracies would like it too, don’t read this book.  If you think that 10% of the Chinese population enjoying the fantastic growth of the last 20 years amounts to a change for the entire Chinese population don’t read this book.  If you like the last 40 years of US (or English, or Australian) foreign policy toward China don’t read this book.But if you wonder why economic change in China hasn’t lead to political change or why no one seems to mind that every US president has taken a hard line on China to get elected but then reversed course in office then you should read James Mann's The China Fantasy: Why Capitalism will not bring Democracy to China.This is the best book about China that is not about China.  The China Fantasy is about US foreign policy toward China and why and who influence that policy.  It’s about how money, not in China but in western big businesses, is more important than human rights and democracy.  It’s about how academic access to China for western intellectuals is constantly more important than the promotion of freedom of expression or a free press in China.The book does a great job of separating the limited access of western policy makers, academics and businessmen to the Chinese middle and upper classes from the realities of the “rest” of China’s 1.6 billion people.  If you’ve only been to universities, factories, east coast cities and government offices this book will quickly expose you to the fact that you’re opinions of China are limited far more than you’re likely to admit.Mann calls for a change, not in policy necessarily, but in the justifications for policy.  I think that there is too much money invested in keeping the status quo for that to ever happen, as does Mann.  But, in the very least, this book will expose the fallacy behind the justifications that many use to come to do business in China.This is not a rah-rah China book and it’s not a China disaster book either—it’s a middle ground, a third path.  Mann says that it’s far more likely for China to continue to grow economically and remain repressive politically than any other option.  The question is: can businesspeople and politicians and consumers in the west live with that.