Asia and Pacific
An Ecological History of Modern China
BY STEVAN HARRELL. University of Washington Press, 2023, 582 pp.
This intellectually adventurous, wide-ranging, and boldly integrative study examines the ecological impact of China’s post-1949 agricultural, dam-building, industrial, and urbanization policies, which propelled the country “from impoverished giant to wealthy superpower” at the cost, Harrell says, of sacrificing “whatever resilience its ecosystems once possessed.” One developmental initiative after another, of which the late 1950s Great Leap Forward was the most damaging, destroyed the institutional, cultural, and other buffers that in premodern times helped China’s environment and Chinese society recover from disruptions. As problems mounted, the characteristic technocratic response of applying “a fix to fix the fix” only made matters worse by failing to encourage the flexibility and adaptation so evident in premodern times. Harrell blames these results not on authoritarianism but on “scientific modernism,” of which the Chinese version of Marxism-Leninism is but one type. Because it is impossible to predict how natural and social systems will interact, he remains open-minded about whether China’s more recent emphasis on “ecological civilization” might yet help the country avoid evergreater disasters.
Stalemate: Autonomy and Insurgency on the China-Myanmar Border
BY ANDREW ONG. Cornell University Press, 2023, 276 pp.
Ong’s illuminating political ethnography of Wa, perhaps the least known of Myanmar’s ethnic minority regions, challenges the conventional view of it as a warlord-governed drug haven. Wa consists of two areas located on the borders with China and Thailand and is home to around half a million people of diverse ethnicities, many of whom speak Chinese and use Chinese currency in daily life. The largest of Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations, the United Wa State Army, rules with a forceful combination of Leninist and patriarchal methods. It has managed to sustain the region’s de facto self
rule for 30 years with minimal use of military force by showing an on-again, off-again deference to both Myanmar’s military regime and the Chinese government. People and goods easily cross the border with China, generating a prosperous economy anchored in casinos, gold and jade mining, timber, tea, and—less than before—opium and methamphetamine. Neither sovereign nor subordinate, Wa enjoys an ambiguous status that Ong calls “relational autonomy.”
Japan’s Quiet Leadership: Reshaping the Indo-Pacific
BY MIREYA SOLÍS. Brookings Institution Press, 2023, 260 pp.
In her judicious survey of Japan’s economics and politics over the last three decades, Solís argues that the country has left stagnation behind to emerge as a regional “network power par excellence.” Tokyo has signed 21 free-trade agreements since the start of this century, built infrastructure projects throughout Southeast Asia that are of higher quality and more financially responsible than China’s equivalent efforts, and intensified security cooperation with Australia, India, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vietnam, and— since her book was published—South Korea. Most of this policy dynamism was the work of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his second term from 2012 to 2020. Abe proposed a policy framework of a “free and open Indo-Pacific”; promoted the cooperative security arrangement among Australia, India, Japan, and the United States known as the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue); and created the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership to breathe life back into the big regional trade agreement that the United States had supported and then abandoned. It is not clear, however, that Abe’s less visionary successors will also take such a strong leadership role.
The Dragon Roars Back: Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy
BY SUISHENG ZHAO. Stanford University Press, 2022, 358 pp.
Zhao presents a robust and empirically rich rebuttal of the realist theory that China’s foreign policy is the straightforward product of its geostrategic position and the broader balance of power. Instead, he attributes such events as the Sino-Soviet split under Mao Zedong and the embrace of globalization under Deng Xiaoping to the idiosyncratic visions of transformational leaders. Today, realist theorists understand U.S.-Chinese tensions as the natural result of a rising China that is working to expand its influence against the resistance of the incumbent power. Zhao instead regards Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “strident” diplomacy and naval buildup in the South China Sea and around Taiwan as policy errors, arising from Xi’s belief in “a resentful strain of nationalism” and supported by hubristic public opinion that Xi has fostered. The author argues that confronting the United States has unnecessarily put China in an isolated position in the face of a stronger power.
Reading the China Dream
WEBSITE CURATED BY DAVID OWNBY
This invaluable online resource presents translations into English of writings from Chinese “establishment intellectuals”—writers who have independent ideas but do not directly challenge the regime.The volume of potential material available in Chinese publications and websites is oceanic, so the site is selective. Topics include issues pertaining to youth, gender, religion, mental health, globalization, Black Lives Matter, former U.S. President Donald Trump, and Chinese politics. The translations are excellent. The introductions and translators’ notes help overcome barriers to understanding created by the writers’ distinctive vocabularies and intellectual styles. Despite Chinese Communist Party control over the world of thought in China, there is surprising diversity and creativity in what can be published. The website is a precious resource for those who want to understand what topics are publicly debatable in China and what Chinese writers are saying about them.