Short Reviews
New titles by lowell Dittmer; shyam saran; scott a. snyder; William h. Overholt; Daniel Kurtz-phelan; Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom & Maura elizabeth Cunningham; alexander lukin; Joshua eisenman & eric heginbotham (eds.); Mel Gurtov; Daniel Tudor (ed.); Myungi Yang; andrew l. Oros; John lewis Gaddis; Yoichi Funabashi (ed.).
Veteran China scholar Lowell Dittmer’s book offers an original take on post-cold War Asia caught in the pull and push of big powers. He argues that with the US and China engaged in a contest for control of Asia, regional relations have taken on a triangular dynamic. He seems to agree with Washington’s fears that “America’s Asia is becoming China’s Asia.”
The result is a fascinating tapestry that reveals the undercurrents of strategic, economic and political interests of Asian countries as they interact with the rival powers. After presenting a masterful summary of Us-china relations in a chapter on “Contesting Hegemony,” Dittmer spends six chapters examining how the triangular approach shaped the relations of Russia, Japan, India, Taiwan, the Korean peninsula, Australia and 10 Southeast Asian countries. The red thread running through the book is China’s obsessive ambition to surpass the US. While accepting the likelihood that China will, he thinks a “major hegemonic war” is unlikely, because both the US and China are acutely aware of the cost of such a conflict.
Dittmer sees the current state of relations in Asia broadly as “a romantic triangle in which the rest of Asia ... enjoys better relations with both China and the United States than the latter have with each other.”
But the demonstration of strategic power and harmless diplomatic maneuvers that Asian countries have faced so far may prove ephemeral. It could simply be “elevated discourse above the diplomatic table and kicking beneath it.” Dittmer’s depth of research and incisive analysis makes the book a valuable contribution to understanding modern Asia.