Book Description:

Once a sleeping giant, China today is the world's fastest growing economy--the leading manufacturer of cell phones, laptop computers, and digital cameras--a dramatic turn-around that alarms many Westerners. But in China: The Fragile Superpower, Susan L. Shirk opens up the black box of Chinese politics and finds that the real danger lies elsewhere--not in China's astonishing growth, but in the deep insecurity of its leaders. China's leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today's Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think--and what they fear. In this revealing book, readers see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world. Indeed, ever since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, Chinese leaders have been haunted by the fear that their days in power are numbered. Theirs is a regime afraid of its own citizens, and this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the U.S. and other foreign nations. In particular, the fervent nationalism of the Chinese people, combined with their passionate resentment of Japan and attachment to Taiwan, have made relations with these two regions a minefield. It is here, Shirk concludes, in the tangled interactions between Japan, Taiwan, China, and the United States, that the greatest danger lies. Shirk argues that rising powers such as China tend to provoke wars in large part because other countries mishandle them. Unless we understand China's brittle internal politics and the fears that motivate its leaders, we face the very real possibility of avoidable conflict with China. This book provides that understanding.

Summary: Excellent and Authoritative Information
Rating: 5

It is widely believed in China that if the regime allows Taiwan to declare formal independence without opposition, the public will bring down the Communist government. Similarly, if the U.S. failed to stand up to such Chinese bullying, our leaders worry that American credibility would be seriously harmed and our government likely voted out of office. Meanwhile, independent leaders in China periodically "push the envelope" - risking confrontation between the U.S. and China. This sensitive situation is the "weakness" that Shirk refers to - preserving both China and U.S. "face" is essential to peace.

China is partly responsible for creating the situation - stoking nationalist fervor in its textbooks, etc., at least partly to build loyalty to the central government. On the other hand, their fear is not lightly based - failure to defend the nation against foreign aggression brought down the government in 1911 and 1949, and it barely survived the Tienanmen Square protests of 1989.

Communist Party rule is seen by the leadership as essential to preventing civil war and chaos. Keeping the economy growing at least 7%/year is viewed as essential to prevent large-scale labor unrest, and a peaceful international environment is seen as an essential environment. (Thus, its assisting the U.S. vs. N.K.) The U.S. market is key - China is now the world's largest producer of steel (1/3), turns out 2/3 of the world's photocopiers, microwave ovens, DVD players, and shoes; 40% of consumer goods bought in the U.S. are made in China.

Recent results are impressive. Foreign-investment R&D centers have risen from 200 four years ago to 750, per the World Bank, 4 million Chinese have been lifted out of poverty since 1979, and per UNICEF, it has halved its percentage of underweight children in the past 15 years. Non-performing bank loans have fallen from 18% in 2003 to 8.8% in 2005.

However, by 2065, 54% of its population will be over age 60, requiring massive savings to support them, the Ministry of Education expected that 25% of 2005 college graduates would be unable to find jobs (limited 2006 enrollment to lessen labor unrest), inequality has widened - both between the richest and poorest and the urban vs. rural, and the populace sees the nation as riddled with corruption (actually China is in the middle rankings of world corruption). Then, there are its environmental problems - 16 of the world's 20 cities with the worst air pollution are in China; water pollution is another major problem. All these issues are well-known by its citizens, and not well received. Ethnic unrest is another issue - primarily in the rural areas.

China's government has studied overthrows in other nations. Internet information has been limited (difficult to do). Potential opposition leaders are co-opted through patronage, and organizations that might present a political threat are shut down. The Party also appoints all judges and has final say on verdicts.

Shirk's major recommendations: China should stop its state support of assertive nationalism and build more bridges to Taiwan - including its government. (China already allows travel between the two areas, and Taiwanese investment in mainland China.)

Summary: Preparing the Path Ahead for China and the U.S.
Rating: 5

Almost invariably, every diplomat, think-tanker, journalist, and (of course) academic who has devoted a significant portion of his or her life studying the elusive and enigmatic nature of the modern Chinese state writes a book about China. These proliferating volumes vary widely in quality, and usually have rather short shelf lives.

Susan Shirk's contribution to the genre, CHINA: FRAGILE SUPERPOWER, is worthy of your attention. Shirk, a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, published her book before October 2007's Seventeenth Party Congress, which at first might seem odd---wouldn't an author want to wait to see how the future Chinese leadership might be shaping up and comment on that?---but it becomes apparent in reading her book that Shirk is really focused on greater, less fungible forces shaping the situation in China, in particular, mass Chinese public (at least, that which has access to the Internet) reaction to foreign events that affect China as well as to Chinese leadership decisions that impinge against China's national esteem or world status.

Shirk's greatest contribution is in the latter half of her book, in which she analyzes China's relationship with Japan, Taiwan, and the United States. In the final pages, she summarizes some of her thoughts on how the U.S. and China should best proceed in their relationship in next few years.

Shirk's book, like many in its genre, is part memoir, which I think is unfortunate. Though her personal recollections might be seen as providing the book both legitimacy for her views and a kind of human-interest element, I found her interpolations of self into the historical narratives almost Zelig-like. I think her book would have been stronger without these elements. That having been said, I think she could write a fascinating memoir of her experiences, and I would be sorely tempted to read it.

CHINA: FRAGILE SUPERPOWER is a worthy contribution to the China policy books of the past couple of years. Any student, scholar, or policy wonk interested in contemporary China would be well advised to become familiar with it.

Summary: Blind spot
Rating: 2

In China: Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise (2007), Susan L. Shirk argues that China's leaders face a troubling paradox: the more developed and prosperous the country becomes, the more insecure and threatened they feel, and that this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the U.S., Japan and Taiwan where potential conflicts may not be avoidable. But what she fails to answer is: throughout the history of China, every regime has always been afraid of its own citizens and top leaders have always been haunted by the fear that their days in power are numbered, what's anything special now?

Summary: China's fragility lies elsewhere
Rating: 3

Honestly, China - Fragile Superpower caught my attention as well as curiosity. How fragile is China? This is my very first question before reading the book. The poor rural peasants, increasing laid-off workers, the rise of civil and democratic consciousness among Chinese citizens, the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)...? I have thought about various reasons for a fragile China.

Unexpectedly, a "fragile China" is not the comment or viewpoint from the west, but from the Chinese president Hu Jintao, "although China looks like a powerhouse from the outside, to its leaders it looks fragile, poor and overwhelmed by internal problems". Indeed, everyone knows that the Chinese leaders are facing numerous internal problems, apart from dealing with poor peasants and laid-off workers, environmental degradation, the Chinese product safety, the gap between the rich and the poor as well as the income gap between coastal and inland are also the imminent challenges to the rise of China.

Susan L. Shirk is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in managing US-China relations. She has another perspective towards a "fragile China" - the rise of internet and mass media. The whole threatening mechanism begins with the young "netizens". The "netizens" search the foreign website in getting the uncensored international news and post it to the local forums. Other "netizens" start to discuss the issue and post some radical responses like protesting the Japanese prime minister's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. Shirk also studies the similar cases such as the US bombardment on Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, the clash of aircraft between China and the US near South China Sea in 2001 and the provocative issue such as Taiwan. Since the Chinese leaders seek to get the collective consensus (to avoid personal responsibility) before formally reacting to international crisis, their replies always come late. In the meantime, the Chinese leaders cannot control the spreading news, especially those from the internet. In order to remain the legitimacy of the government, the Chinese leaders are forced to address according to the public opinion. This is the reason why China reacts toughly towards Japan, the United States and Taiwan even though the Chinese leaders treasure the economic interdependences between China, Japan and the United States as well as the positive image of mainland China among Taiwanese.

Besides, by interviewing some Chinese military generals, Shirk finds that the Chinese leaders have compromised to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for regime security. Some PLA generals heavily criticized Jiang Zemin's leadership in dealing with foreign countries. For example, Jiang is regarded as too pro-American, too soft on Japan while too optimistic towards the unification of Taiwan. To pacify the discontents among the PLA generals, Jiang enlarged the PLA's budget with an increase of double digit percentage annually. Not surprisingly, the west believes that the rise of Chinese military power is a potential threat to the Asia-Pacific region, not because of the modernization of the PLA, but for the growing influence of the Chinese military generals who are not accountable to the civilian government.

Therefore, according to Shirk, China is a fragile superpower because there are too many constrains on the Chinese leaders in making both their domestic and foreign policy. Even worse, as Shirk writes, "The CCP's ability to control the information that reaches the public is declining at the same time as the country's military capabilities are improving. And these two trends combine dangerously to intensify the pressure to use force to defend China's honor".

Though Shirk develops a model in explaining the dilemmas of the Chinese leaders in facing the demands of public opinion and the belligerence of military generals, it seems that the role of the internet in China is a bit exaggerated. In fact, many foreign websites are blocked in China. Even though there are limited occasional cases which the "netizens" posted uncensored news on local website, these news were removed within hours. There is a doubt whether a concrete public opinion can be formed within a few hours via internet. Shirk also admits that the huge Chinese demonstration against the US for the bombardment of Belgrade in 1999 and the clash of Chinese and American aircrafts in 2001 were acquiesced if not encouraged by the Chinese government. The Chinese government kept the demonstrations under control in order to get better bargaining position over the US. However, Shirk should also take into account that there was a call up of anti-Japanese demonstration in April 2005 on the internet for the Japanese prime minister Kozumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. But this time, the Chinese government firmly prohibited the demonstration since the previous anti-Japanese demonstrations went radically by attacking the Japanese stores. Also, the Chinese leaders want to send a signal to Japan that China is willing to restore their bilateral relations. The point here is that no demonstration can be appeared without the consent of the Chinese government, no matter the demonstration is called up through the internet or not. Besides, Shirk believes that the CCP will stand firm towards Japan, Taiwan and the US because the Qing and the Kuomintang government lost their regime for failing to expel foreign aggressions. It is indeed too early to justify whether the ordinary Chinese will overthrow the CCP only because of its soft stance towards Japan, Taiwan and the US, given that the situation is not the same for the CCP now when compare the previous regimes.

China is a fragile rising power, but its fragility lies on the peasants who have no land to farm and the laid-off workers who have no social security net to rely on rather than the public opinion on the internet.

Summary: Understanding China
Rating: 5

Few fields of academic endeavor are as determinedly pc as the study of communist China. China academics and intelligence analysts over the years have strived with some success to portray the communist regime in a more benign light than probably is warranted.

Fortunately Susan Shirk''s book--the best work yet to appear on contemporary China-- provides a balanced and thoughtful perspective on the contradictory impulses driving Chinese leadership behavior.As Shirk ably documents, pressures of rapid economic transformatiion, fraying political controls and rabid nationalist sentiment pose difficult challenges for the regime, increasing the potential for conflict with the United States. Shirk pleads for a U.S. China policy based on a better understanding of these constraints, both to lower the risk of war and to improve prospects of Sino-U,S, collaboration on issues of global concern.

This is a perfectly good argument as far as it goes and is relevant not just to China. Russia --economically emergent and increasingly nationalistic-- represents a comparable problem for U.S. policy.The U.S. penchant for Russia-bashing needlessly provokes Russian leaders and publics, heightening East-West tensions and clouding the outlook for peace and security in Europe.

Perfect understanding, of course is not a sure-fire recipe for conflict- avoidance. Washington can "lavish respect on China's leaders" (in the author's words) but there is a host of contentious issues on which it must pursue its own priorities: trade imbalances, contaminated food exports, software piracy, China's military build-up, Taiwan security, massive Chinese espionage operations in the United States, human rights violations and more. Hostilities with China, while obviously not desirable , could break out nonetheless. Following Shirk's line of analysis, should China emerge the clear loser, the regime would suffer loss of legitimacy and possibly collapse altogether. Whether anything better would emerge in its place, though, is an open question.