Author: James E. Sheridan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439119422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
After the 1911 fall of the Manchus came the most hideous breakdown in Chinese history. Sheridan, a Northwestern University scholar, concentrates on the Kuomintang movement of Chiang Kai-shek, insisting that we judge a political force by whether it solves the problems posed to it, not, as Chiang's partisans prefer, by means of what-if's. Sheridan's focus on the KMT brings more to light than do many surveys of Mao's revolutionaries. The KMT failed either to create an effective dictatorship or to mobilize fascist passions which could ensure willingness to "sacrifice." Thus the difficulty in squeezing enough wealth out of the peasantry to meet a foreign debt which totaled half the national revenue. The KMT did ensure that forced opium production took up at least a fifth of Chinese cropland by the 1929-1933 period, and they consolidated a soldier recruitment system that approximated Nazi roundups. However, the book underlines Chiang's failure to give the masses a ""Strength through Joy"" spirit; and, as wartime inflation of 300% gave way to postwar collapse, the anti-Communist pitch became emptier and emptier. The Kuomintang turned into a mere holding operation and faded into chaos. Sheridan gives a strong sense of the rapine of the warlords who were Chiang's off-and-on allies, and of the feeble heritage of Sun Yat-sen's patriotic platitudes. He leaves out explicit investigation of the international context while underlining, more than most writers, Chiang's commitment to repay external debt at the expense of the Chinese people. A sound and striking approach to these decades of desperation in the lives of a quarter of the human population—if not bypassed in the glut of "China books," it may encourage students and academics to go further. —Kirkus Reviews
China in Disintegration
Author: James E. Sheridan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439119422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
After the 1911 fall of the Manchus came the most hideous breakdown in Chinese history. Sheridan, a Northwestern University scholar, concentrates on the Kuomintang movement of Chiang Kai-shek, insisting that we judge a political force by whether it solves the problems posed to it, not, as Chiang's partisans prefer, by means of what-if's. Sheridan's focus on the KMT brings more to light than do many surveys of Mao's revolutionaries. The KMT failed either to create an effective dictatorship or to mobilize fascist passions which could ensure willingness to "sacrifice." Thus the difficulty in squeezing enough wealth out of the peasantry to meet a foreign debt which totaled half the national revenue. The KMT did ensure that forced opium production took up at least a fifth of Chinese cropland by the 1929-1933 period, and they consolidated a soldier recruitment system that approximated Nazi roundups. However, the book underlines Chiang's failure to give the masses a ""Strength through Joy"" spirit; and, as wartime inflation of 300% gave way to postwar collapse, the anti-Communist pitch became emptier and emptier. The Kuomintang turned into a mere holding operation and faded into chaos. Sheridan gives a strong sense of the rapine of the warlords who were Chiang's off-and-on allies, and of the feeble heritage of Sun Yat-sen's patriotic platitudes. He leaves out explicit investigation of the international context while underlining, more than most writers, Chiang's commitment to repay external debt at the expense of the Chinese people. A sound and striking approach to these decades of desperation in the lives of a quarter of the human population—if not bypassed in the glut of "China books," it may encourage students and academics to go further. —Kirkus Reviews
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439119422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
After the 1911 fall of the Manchus came the most hideous breakdown in Chinese history. Sheridan, a Northwestern University scholar, concentrates on the Kuomintang movement of Chiang Kai-shek, insisting that we judge a political force by whether it solves the problems posed to it, not, as Chiang's partisans prefer, by means of what-if's. Sheridan's focus on the KMT brings more to light than do many surveys of Mao's revolutionaries. The KMT failed either to create an effective dictatorship or to mobilize fascist passions which could ensure willingness to "sacrifice." Thus the difficulty in squeezing enough wealth out of the peasantry to meet a foreign debt which totaled half the national revenue. The KMT did ensure that forced opium production took up at least a fifth of Chinese cropland by the 1929-1933 period, and they consolidated a soldier recruitment system that approximated Nazi roundups. However, the book underlines Chiang's failure to give the masses a ""Strength through Joy"" spirit; and, as wartime inflation of 300% gave way to postwar collapse, the anti-Communist pitch became emptier and emptier. The Kuomintang turned into a mere holding operation and faded into chaos. Sheridan gives a strong sense of the rapine of the warlords who were Chiang's off-and-on allies, and of the feeble heritage of Sun Yat-sen's patriotic platitudes. He leaves out explicit investigation of the international context while underlining, more than most writers, Chiang's commitment to repay external debt at the expense of the Chinese people. A sound and striking approach to these decades of desperation in the lives of a quarter of the human population—if not bypassed in the glut of "China books," it may encourage students and academics to go further. —Kirkus Reviews
Mao's Invisible Hand
Author: Sebastian Heilmann
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684171164
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
"Observers have been predicting the demise of China’s political system since Mao Zedong’s death over thirty years ago. The Chinese Communist state, however, seems to have become increasingly adept at responding to challenges ranging from leadership succession and popular unrest to administrative reorganization, legal institutionalization, and global economic integration. What political techniques and procedures have Chinese policymakers employed to manage the unsettling impact of the fastest sustained economic expansion in world history? As the authors of these essays demonstrate, China’s political system allows for more diverse and flexible input than would be predicted from its formal structures. Many contemporary methods of governance have their roots in techniques of policy generation and implementation dating to the revolution and early PRC—techniques that emphasize continual experimentation. China’s long revolution had given rise to this guerrilla-style decisionmaking as a way of dealing creatively with pervasive uncertainty. Thus, even in a post-revolutionary PRC, the invisible hand of Chairman Mao—tamed, tweaked, and transformed—plays an important role in China’s adaptive governance."
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684171164
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
"Observers have been predicting the demise of China’s political system since Mao Zedong’s death over thirty years ago. The Chinese Communist state, however, seems to have become increasingly adept at responding to challenges ranging from leadership succession and popular unrest to administrative reorganization, legal institutionalization, and global economic integration. What political techniques and procedures have Chinese policymakers employed to manage the unsettling impact of the fastest sustained economic expansion in world history? As the authors of these essays demonstrate, China’s political system allows for more diverse and flexible input than would be predicted from its formal structures. Many contemporary methods of governance have their roots in techniques of policy generation and implementation dating to the revolution and early PRC—techniques that emphasize continual experimentation. China’s long revolution had given rise to this guerrilla-style decisionmaking as a way of dealing creatively with pervasive uncertainty. Thus, even in a post-revolutionary PRC, the invisible hand of Chairman Mao—tamed, tweaked, and transformed—plays an important role in China’s adaptive governance."
China in Disintegration : the Republican Era in Chinese History, 1912-1949
Author: James E. Sheridan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
The Coming Collapse of China
Author: Gordon G. Chang
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812977564
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
China is hot. The world sees a glorious future for this sleeping giant, three times larger than the United States, predicting it will blossom into the world's biggest economy by 2010. According to Chang, however, a Chinese-American lawyer and China specialist, the People's Republic is a paper dragon. Peer beneath the veneer of modernization since Mao's death, and the symptoms of decay are everywhere: Deflation grips the economy, state-owned enterprises are failing, banks are hopelessly insolvent, foreign investment continues to decline, and Communist party corruption eats away at the fabric of society. Beijing's cautious reforms have left the country stuck midway between communism and capitalism, Chang writes. With its impending World Trade Organization membership, for the first time China will be forced to open itself to foreign competition, which will shake the country to its foundations. Economic failure will be followed by government collapse. Covering subjects from party politics to the Falun Gong to the government's insupportable position on Taiwan, Chang presents a thorough and very chilling overview of China's present and not-so-distant future.
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812977564
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
China is hot. The world sees a glorious future for this sleeping giant, three times larger than the United States, predicting it will blossom into the world's biggest economy by 2010. According to Chang, however, a Chinese-American lawyer and China specialist, the People's Republic is a paper dragon. Peer beneath the veneer of modernization since Mao's death, and the symptoms of decay are everywhere: Deflation grips the economy, state-owned enterprises are failing, banks are hopelessly insolvent, foreign investment continues to decline, and Communist party corruption eats away at the fabric of society. Beijing's cautious reforms have left the country stuck midway between communism and capitalism, Chang writes. With its impending World Trade Organization membership, for the first time China will be forced to open itself to foreign competition, which will shake the country to its foundations. Economic failure will be followed by government collapse. Covering subjects from party politics to the Falun Gong to the government's insupportable position on Taiwan, Chang presents a thorough and very chilling overview of China's present and not-so-distant future.
Disintegration
Author: Andrei Martyanov
Publisher: SCB Distributors
ISBN: 1949762351
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
The United States is undergoing a profound and radical transformation, all features of which point to the fact of its departure at an accelerated rate from its largely self-proclaimed status as a global hegemon. The United States has lost ground in every single category that defines the power and status of a nation in relation to its rivals. This book delves into the reasons for a catastrophic decline of the American nation, addressing a range of factors from the economic (especially energy), to cultural, technological and military factors. America’s deindustrialized economy is now deeply affected by what can only be described as a massacre of her small and middle-size businesses and the implosion of the US commercial aerospace industry. America’s only driver of real growth, the shale oil industry, is facing realities which may make the Great Depression pale in comparison. Disintegration also seeks answers to the precipitous moral and professional decline of the always mediocre qualities of the American elites, from the corridors of political power to those of the military and business, now spiraling out of control. More alarmingly, the trend also points to the possibility of the actual physical disintegration of the United States as a unified entity—whether the divisions are ethnic or ideological. The most profound fault line is cultural—between the Coastal self-proclaimed elites backed by the secular, liberal media and deep state, who promote the most radical ideologies as it concerns gender and race, and the working class majority whom the former polemicize as deplorables, Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists, and climate and science denialists. Investigating these factors sheds light on America’s future which holds very little promise for the country which had once proclaimed itself to be a shining city on the hill. The American collapse is not just coming, we are presently experiencing it. How can we deal with a catastrophe which is unfolding before our very eyes? Disintegration lays out some possibilities.
Publisher: SCB Distributors
ISBN: 1949762351
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
The United States is undergoing a profound and radical transformation, all features of which point to the fact of its departure at an accelerated rate from its largely self-proclaimed status as a global hegemon. The United States has lost ground in every single category that defines the power and status of a nation in relation to its rivals. This book delves into the reasons for a catastrophic decline of the American nation, addressing a range of factors from the economic (especially energy), to cultural, technological and military factors. America’s deindustrialized economy is now deeply affected by what can only be described as a massacre of her small and middle-size businesses and the implosion of the US commercial aerospace industry. America’s only driver of real growth, the shale oil industry, is facing realities which may make the Great Depression pale in comparison. Disintegration also seeks answers to the precipitous moral and professional decline of the always mediocre qualities of the American elites, from the corridors of political power to those of the military and business, now spiraling out of control. More alarmingly, the trend also points to the possibility of the actual physical disintegration of the United States as a unified entity—whether the divisions are ethnic or ideological. The most profound fault line is cultural—between the Coastal self-proclaimed elites backed by the secular, liberal media and deep state, who promote the most radical ideologies as it concerns gender and race, and the working class majority whom the former polemicize as deplorables, Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists, and climate and science denialists. Investigating these factors sheds light on America’s future which holds very little promise for the country which had once proclaimed itself to be a shining city on the hill. The American collapse is not just coming, we are presently experiencing it. How can we deal with a catastrophe which is unfolding before our very eyes? Disintegration lays out some possibilities.
Chiang Kai-Shek¿s Politics of Shame
Author: Grace C. Huang
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674260139
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 442
Book Description
Grace C. Huang reconsiders Chiang Kai-shek's leadership and legacy in an intriguing new portrait of this twentieth-century leader. Comparing his response to imperialism to those of Mao, Yuan Shikai, and Mahatma Gandhi, Huang widens the implications of her findings to explore alternatives to Western expressions of nationalism and modernity.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674260139
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 442
Book Description
Grace C. Huang reconsiders Chiang Kai-shek's leadership and legacy in an intriguing new portrait of this twentieth-century leader. Comparing his response to imperialism to those of Mao, Yuan Shikai, and Mahatma Gandhi, Huang widens the implications of her findings to explore alternatives to Western expressions of nationalism and modernity.
Asia's New Battlefield
Author: Richard Javad Heydarian
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783603151
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175
Book Description
This compact, insightful book offers an up-to-the-minute guide to understanding the evolution of maritime territorial disputes in East Asia, exploring their legal, political-security and economic dimensions against the backdrop of a brewing Sino-American rivalry for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. It traces the decades-long evolution of Sino-American relations in Asia, and how this pivotal relationship has been central to prosperity and stability in one of the most dynamics regions of the world. It also looks at how middle powers – from Japan and Australia to India and South Korea – have joined the fray, trying to shape the trajectory of the territorial disputes in the Western Pacific, which can, in turn, alter the future of Asia – and ignite an international war that could re-configure the global order. The book examines how the maritime disputes have become a litmus test of China’s rise, whether it has and will be peaceful or not, and how smaller powers such as Vietnam and the Philippines have been resisting Beijing’s territorial ambitions. Drawing on extensive discussions and interviews with experts and policy-makers across the Asia-Pacific region, the book highlights the growing geopolitical significance of the East and South China Sea disputes to the future of Asia – providing insights into how the so-called Pacific century will shape up.
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783603151
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175
Book Description
This compact, insightful book offers an up-to-the-minute guide to understanding the evolution of maritime territorial disputes in East Asia, exploring their legal, political-security and economic dimensions against the backdrop of a brewing Sino-American rivalry for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. It traces the decades-long evolution of Sino-American relations in Asia, and how this pivotal relationship has been central to prosperity and stability in one of the most dynamics regions of the world. It also looks at how middle powers – from Japan and Australia to India and South Korea – have joined the fray, trying to shape the trajectory of the territorial disputes in the Western Pacific, which can, in turn, alter the future of Asia – and ignite an international war that could re-configure the global order. The book examines how the maritime disputes have become a litmus test of China’s rise, whether it has and will be peaceful or not, and how smaller powers such as Vietnam and the Philippines have been resisting Beijing’s territorial ambitions. Drawing on extensive discussions and interviews with experts and policy-makers across the Asia-Pacific region, the book highlights the growing geopolitical significance of the East and South China Sea disputes to the future of Asia – providing insights into how the so-called Pacific century will shape up.
China's Policies on Its Borderlands and the International Implications
Author: Yufan Hao
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814287660
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
This book examines the interplay of two sets of policies: the Chinese government's policies to its borderlands and international relations. It proposes a conceptual framework and argues that China's policymakers fail to make complete use of the opportunities in the borderlands for accomplishing foreign policymakers' agenda to strengthen China's relations with other countries, neighboring ones in particular. As a result, these foreign policies reflect the political elites' inadequate consideration of the negative impact of these policies on the borderlands, and underscore their worry for territorial disintegration. Therefore these policies center on the pursuit of central control through exercising administrative-military coercion, making the borderlands economically dependent, standardizing the cultural identity, and indoctrinating CCP-defined ideology. The challenges of the borderlands to the national integration are exaggerated so much that political elites pursued control and standardization at the expense of the identification of many people in borderlands with the regime, China's international image and the relations with its neighbouring countries.
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814287660
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
This book examines the interplay of two sets of policies: the Chinese government's policies to its borderlands and international relations. It proposes a conceptual framework and argues that China's policymakers fail to make complete use of the opportunities in the borderlands for accomplishing foreign policymakers' agenda to strengthen China's relations with other countries, neighboring ones in particular. As a result, these foreign policies reflect the political elites' inadequate consideration of the negative impact of these policies on the borderlands, and underscore their worry for territorial disintegration. Therefore these policies center on the pursuit of central control through exercising administrative-military coercion, making the borderlands economically dependent, standardizing the cultural identity, and indoctrinating CCP-defined ideology. The challenges of the borderlands to the national integration are exaggerated so much that political elites pursued control and standardization at the expense of the identification of many people in borderlands with the regime, China's international image and the relations with its neighbouring countries.
The Chinese Market Economy, 1000–1500
Author: William Guanglin Liu
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438455690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
Since the economic liberalization of the 1980s, the Chinese economy has boomed and is poised to become the world's largest market economy, a position traditional China held a millennium ago. William Guanglin Liu's bold and fascinating book is the first to rely on quantitative methods to investigate the early market economy that existed in China, making use of rare market and population data produced by the Song dynasty in the eleventh century. A counterexample comes from the century around 1400 when the early Ming court deliberately turned agrarian society into a command economy system. This radical change not only shrank markets, but also caused a sharp decline in the living standards of common people. Liu's landmark study of the rise and fall of a market economy highlights important issues for contemporary China at both the empirical and theoretical levels.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438455690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
Since the economic liberalization of the 1980s, the Chinese economy has boomed and is poised to become the world's largest market economy, a position traditional China held a millennium ago. William Guanglin Liu's bold and fascinating book is the first to rely on quantitative methods to investigate the early market economy that existed in China, making use of rare market and population data produced by the Song dynasty in the eleventh century. A counterexample comes from the century around 1400 when the early Ming court deliberately turned agrarian society into a command economy system. This radical change not only shrank markets, but also caused a sharp decline in the living standards of common people. Liu's landmark study of the rise and fall of a market economy highlights important issues for contemporary China at both the empirical and theoretical levels.
Economic Openness and Territorial Politics in China
Author: Yumin Sheng
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139490311
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Why and how has the Chinese central government so far managed to fend off the centrifugal forces under rising globalization that are predicted to undermine national-level political authority everywhere? When institutionally empowered by centralized governing political parties as in China, national politicians confronting the menace of economic openness will resort to exercising tighter political control over the subnational governments of the 'winner' regions in the global markets. Although its goal is to facilitate revenue extraction, redress domestic economic disparity, and prolong the rule of national leaders, regionally targeted central political control could engender mixed economic consequences. Sheng examines the political response of the Chinese central government, via the ruling Chinese Communist Party, to the territorial challenges of the country's embrace of the world markets, and the impact of the regionally selective exercise of political control on central fiscal extraction and provincial economic growth during the 1978–2005 period.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139490311
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Why and how has the Chinese central government so far managed to fend off the centrifugal forces under rising globalization that are predicted to undermine national-level political authority everywhere? When institutionally empowered by centralized governing political parties as in China, national politicians confronting the menace of economic openness will resort to exercising tighter political control over the subnational governments of the 'winner' regions in the global markets. Although its goal is to facilitate revenue extraction, redress domestic economic disparity, and prolong the rule of national leaders, regionally targeted central political control could engender mixed economic consequences. Sheng examines the political response of the Chinese central government, via the ruling Chinese Communist Party, to the territorial challenges of the country's embrace of the world markets, and the impact of the regionally selective exercise of political control on central fiscal extraction and provincial economic growth during the 1978–2005 period.