China: Fragile Superpower | 
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Product 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: 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 afraid of its own citizens, and this fear motivates many of their decisions when dealing with the U.S. and other 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 this country a minefield. The paperback edition features a new preface by the author.
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Customer Reviews:
• Subduing Bellicosity 22 June, 2008
As many others have intricately described the particular subjects that are adroitly dealt with in this book, I will spend my time touting one of its primary virtues.
China is oft portrayed as a monolithic power -- a Communist behemoth in the process of ascending to parity with the United States, and thereby posing an existential threat to all we hold dear. Many are the pundits and politicos that ramp up various and sundry fears of the Middle Kingdom and its 1.3 billion, whether regarding economic or military issues.
This book does yeomen work in presenting to the average American a balanced view of China. Yes, China is rising; who could doubt that? But it is not on an inexorable collision course with the west. In fact, China has a great many problems of its own that it will have to deal with in the years ahead, so much so that to think that China is looking toward the day when it can challenge America for global supremacy is prima facie absurd. What's more likely the case, as Susan Shirk shows, is China's leaders are above all else concerned about their (surprisingly) tenuous hold on power, and care not a fig for surpassing the United States in per capita GDP or in military spending EXCEPT IN SO FAR AS IT WILL PRESERVE THEIR POSITIONS OF PROMINENCE.
In conclusion, hats off to Dr. Shirk for an excellent and well documented work, and for doing -- unwittingly or not -- her service to preserve peace.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3GVAH3OEDCBC1
• Super-target 11 December, 2008
China may be an economy superpower, definitely not a superpower from the western world view that is to dominate the world. It's a near impossible for scholars with the Christian culture background to understand the eastern mind. Modern Chinese just want to do business and get rich. However, being a lone big communist nation, China is the supertarget and evil 2nd only to Islam to the west. It's merely a good excuse for the US to strengthen their self-defined high morality and military force to maintain the world dominance. For that, most books about China written by western scholars can only get one star, Shirk's is one of them.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A27VHQKG5UR8FA
• China: Fragile Superpower 22 November, 2008
The book was excellent! Susan L. Shirk deftly shows the dilemmas of the Chinese Communist Party. They want to stay in power at all costs. In order to do so they have to do a lot to juggle the interests of various factions in China. Going too far in either direction could mean their destruction.
China: Fragile Superpower does a masterful job of describing the role of the government in a changing China.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2JVU9UMJXMC3M
• This Book Doesn't Undertand China At All 08 November, 2008
As a chinese student, before I read it ,I think it must be very interesting.But after read it ,I feel disappoint. The point is thatthis book has totally misunderstood China. Just for one example, from page 61-64, the author talks about student unrest and nationalism. The biggest mistake she made is that she based her ideas soley on her own experience and the newspaper she read in China. But what happen really inside China is not that simple.I'm a college student at the time when the anti-japan begins.We didn't go out demonstrating because we believe most students who are going out are just pro communist party people and they don't know about freedom. The students the author talks about doesn't represent the true brilliant students who had inherited the freedom and demorcrany spirt of the 1989 June 4. The reason why the author don't know is because generally pro- demorcrany and pro- American students don't want to express their political opinion freely in China. The author write about the students who chase her and blame American, but she can't conculde that all students are that way. Also she talks about Harvard CHinese studets, but many of them are just don't know anything, many students who go to Harvard are studying sicence, they are easily misled by Chinese goverment. The author can't conclude that just because she saw students who are nationalism, all students are nationalism. Many of the students are still very rationle, they know how to treat things.DO remember that many chinese students still know what's right from wrong.They know June 4th,1989,although goverment ban people talking about thus many students today don't know.
The author made other mistakes well. A people from China like me really don't think she knows China too well,especiall grass root opinion.She just knows the surface of China,only see offical newspaper,meet offical students and professors, watch offical TV and then translate them into ENglish.Sorry maybe my words are too harsh but that just becaue I think this book misundertood China too much.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A17JUQPIAM9WB
• Subtitle Better Suits The Contents Of The Book 16 June, 2008
Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Susan L. Shirk has provided a solid book on several of the key domestic and international pressures facing China today. The insights gained from her life experiences set this book apart from many others. Although the last chapter seems as if it was tagged on after-the-fact at the request of an editor, Ms. Shirk stays true to her central theme of public opinion and fear of losing Party control as the driving forces in all of the Chinese government's decisions, domestic and international.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2660XEUY2J54A
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