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China: Fragile Superpower

Customer Rating:

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.

this book doesn't undertand China at all

Customer Rating:

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.

Subduing Bellicosity

Customer Rating:

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.

Subtitle better suits the contents of the book

Customer Rating:

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.

Impressively Truthful	Customer Rating:
This book exams the Chinese society very objectively and pinpoints the weaknesses China has, regardless how much it has developed in recent years and how strong people think China is. If you want to know the truth about China, this book is worth reading.