The China question

Peter Navarro is worried about China and if you read his book, you are at the very least, you may well get concerned as well. The Coming China Wars details problems with Chinese production, quality control, human rights and environmental protection. He also points to Chinese foreign policy as an indicator that China is moving into peer competitor territory. Let's look at each in turn.

Navarro wants US consumers to limit buying Chinese goods, because it is not good for the American economy and because it supports bad Chinese work and environmental habits. He provides a number of cases of evidence for this, although some lean toward the anecdotal. Many times it is difficult to know the scale of the problems he is presenting. How much of the Chinese produced medicine is shoddy for example? I suppose the answer in that case is that one case is too many, but it can be hard to tell how serious the problems that Navarro presents are. His tone can reach the apocalyptic which reduces the appeal of his arguments to the unsure.

Quite a bit of the problems he relates call into question the ability of China to continue on its growth path. Internal divisions, more class than ethnic, are a problem. Environmental degradation is reaching critical levels and the wealthy classes will only go so long without a shift to a consumer culture. This is helpful, as most of the books you read tend to treat China's rise as inevitable.

On the foreign policy side, he portrays Chinese as a rapacious neo-imperialist creating new outposts places as far from Beijing as Central Africa and Latin America. This shouldn't be unexpected. China is growing more wealthy and powerful and as such it is spreading its wings. In few ways does this threaten the United States in any meaningful way. The Chinese Army, Navy and Air Force remain far behind the US and would not fare well in any conflict and the Chinese are sure to know this. Navarro strains credulity when he suggests Chinese anti satellite facilities on Cuba might lead to a new Cuban missile crisis.

So take a look at this book for some reasons to reconsider your shopping and for reasons to think that China's rise may stumble, but don't over-react.

End of days

Having just visited Shanghai, I finally pulled Noel Barber's The Fall of Shanghai off the shelf. This one has survived countless book purges over the 12+ years I have owned and now it will be shipped off to a friend in Shanghai.

It isn't the best book you can read on China but it is one of the few to concentrate on the city in the year before the communist takeover in 1949. The city was home to many millions in the late 40s and was the leading commercial center of the country. This was largely due to the concentration of colonial power in the city. Barber's book, while it touches on the Chinese in the city, is primarily concerned with foreigners in Shanghai and the lives they led.

The book's tone is nostalgic, longing for the days of the clubs along the Bund, and for the country of living of some of the foreigners as well. The violence of the war is referenced but is most closely discussed in the case of the HMS Amethyst, a British frigate that became trapped on the Yangtze river in between communist and nationalist troops.

What makes the book a bit peculiar is the emphasis placed on the Europeans when China's biggest national drama was underway around them. That's not to say it isn't covered, but the emphasis is strange. The book's coda, written in 1979 laments the loss of the colorful colonial Shanghai and its replacement by the drab Maoist version. Had Barber lived to this century, I imagine he would be impressed with the activity in the city today.

There are of course a number of good books about China available. The one about which I keep hearing is China Road written by NPR's Rob Gifford. It's next on my list. Peter Hessler's River Town is a readable and thoughtful account of Hessler's two years as a teacher in a small town on the Yangtze river. The interior of China remains far less developed than the coasts and it is interesting to read about how the changes in the economy affect this part of China. Finally, one question that should be on everyone's mind is how green will be China be. Elizabeth Economy's The River Runs Black presents a bleak picture.

I hear hearts beating, loud as thunder

So much of the current writing on China is at the macro level. There are plenty of books about the rise of China, like the Writing on the Wall and China Shakes the World. Then we also get fear mongering about the (marginal) Chinese military threat to the United States.

Peter Hessler's River Town is about China at the micro level. He writes about what it is like to live and work, as a teacher, in a small (by Chinese standards) town on the Yangtze. This sort of book can easily become narcissistic. Fortunately, Hessler does an excellent job of using his experiences to describe Chinese life. I also taught English in China (in Xi'an) and his descriptions ring true. The strong nationalism of the students, the annoyance and fascination with America and the challenges of really standing out are well depicted.

One welcome trait of Hessler is his balance of the Chinese and American viewpoint. He points to cultural differences and analyzes them without bias. He notes that the Chinese have a mythical view of Tibet, but so do the Americans about Thanksgiving. Where appropriate, he is highly critical of the Chinese as in their ducking of the issue of the Mao. Instead of criticizing specific policies, they use the party line that he was 70% correct and 30% wrong. Hessler would test them by saying Mao was in fact 67% correct, and his Chinese interlocutor would correct him. These rigidities weakened when he interacted with the common people, or old hundred names, as they call themselves. Unlike the elites (such as students) they are less constrained by the need to conform.

There is quite a bit to enjoy in this book. If you want to read about life in China, or just see an excellent stylist in action, this is a great place to invest.