China Wakes, Shakes, Rocks and Rolls
Here’s one for the reading list: China Wakes, by Nicolas D. Kristof and Cheryl WuDunn. The husband-and-wife team won the Pulitzer for covering Tiananmen Square, and both the writing and reporting in their account of five years covering the country are superb.
Like the rest of my China books, I bought this one elsewhere, Thailand in this case. I don’t know if the book is available here, and I seriously doubt it’s available in Chinese. The authors regard the Communist Party as a collapsing dynasty, call Deng Xiaoping a “Red Emperor,” and they were right in the middle of things on June 4.
About halfway through the book, however, I started wondering if it was still relevant. Considering how quickly China is remaking itself (and how much of a cliche that has become), can a book published a decade ago about current events still offer accurate insights? Is there even a point in trying to predict the direction Chinese political and economic development will take?
Kristof essentially answered that question for me in Chapter 13:
In any case, there is a strong chance that China will succeed over the coming decades in sustaining an economic boom. If that happens, China will demand far more of the world’s energy resources. It will add substantially to the world’s problems with acid rain, chlorofluorocarbons, and global warming. It may well come to dominate a number of sports and sweep the medals chart in every Olympics. Its trade accounts will be breathtaking, and its bankers will be major international players. So, perhaps, will its generals.
Funny how things work out.
Kristof and WuDunn are careful to qualify their predictions. They write in the last chapter that an editor once complained: “You use ‘ appears’ or ‘apparently’ or ’seems’ in every paragraph. Can’t you say something without hedging?”
I want to say they’re spot on, both in their reporting and in their humility. Then again, I have to give my own room for error when reviewing the book, because I’m in no position to judge their accuracy.
The book paints a complex and often self-contradicting picture of China, and the authors reiterate that anything uncomplicated would fall short. On one hand, the reforms of the last 25 years lifted millions out of the most dire poverty on Earth. Then again, political repression continues, and the country isn’t where it wants to be. The authors grapple with this, document their personal struggles, and in the end, they come to an optimistic conclusion.
I’m with them on that.
Next on the reading list: Waiting, by Ha Jin
March 15th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Nice review, Chris. I’ve written my own thoughts on this a few times but I’d say they’re pretty consistent with what you’ve written here. I am both impressed and amazed at the ability of the CCP to pull so many people out of poverty and to bring so much prosperity to China’s cities in such a short amount of time. At the same time, without adequate legal protections, the ability to hold officials accountable to stakeholders in society, many of China’s problems, such as gross inequalities between rich and poor, environmental degradation, and endemic corruption are not likely to improve and wishing won’t make it so.