Professor Susan Shirk's Book Reviewed in the Washington Post
China: Fragile Superpower Described as Revelatory
10/01/2007
John Pomfret,
Washington Post
Susan L. Shirk starts out her revelatory book on China with a nightmare scenario. A Chinese SU-27 fighter and a Taiwanese F-16 collide over the Taiwan Strait. The incident spirals out of control when the Chinese do what they always do in a crisis: blame the other guy. Demonstrations erupt in Beijing. Protesters demand that the Communist Party confront Taiwan and the United States. "When will China finally stand up?" read the signs. Washington scrambles as Beijing readies for war.
This brief, fictional opening frames Shirk's book, dramatizing the possibility that China's communist leadership could lurch into combat with Taiwan and the United States, which is obligated to defend the island nation under the Taiwan Relations Act. She sets out to explain why it is not a mere fantasy and why we, basically, need to be nice to China to keep the nightmare at bay.
At a time when much writing about China frothily presumes the unstoppable rise of a global titan, it is refreshing that a respected academic and former government official (Shirk was the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia during the second Clinton administration) questions the notion that China is going to run the world. "China may be an emerging superpower," she writes, "but it is a fragile one."
Click here to continue reading.
Related Links
Click here to access the original article.
