China's Transition (review)

Reviews 211 new technocrats, entrepreneurs, and managers—bent on making money and participating in the good life—intellectuals who are also concerned with the larger issues of their times and willing to take risks to make their voices heard? Mok, too, voices his doubts, but he states them in terms that are far too tentative. Yet, his point is well taken when he reminds the reader tiiat the drastic economic changes in China today, while improving the livelihood ofthe people, also threaten the state's social controls. With the state no longer the sole source of status and livelihood, intellectuals have far greater alternatives than they had before. As an infinitely varied and heterogeneous group, there will among them be those who will take advantage of market opportunities. But there are others who will be heard, will continue to speak out for greater freedoms, and—like the dissidents who are for the most part abroad now—will persist in demanding democratic reforms. Intellectuals and the State raises ideas for further exploration, and is a very worthwhile contribution to a discussion of one of the major questions oftoday: where China is headed in the post-Mao and post-Deng era. Irene Eber Hebrew University ofJerusalem Irene Eber is with the Truman Research Institute and is Louis Frieberg Professor of EastAsian Studies in the Department ofEastAsian Studies; she specializes in Chinese intellectual history. mm Andrew J. Nathan. China's Transition. With contributions by Tianjian Shi and Helena V. S. Ho. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 313 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-231-11022-7. China's Transition is a collection of sixteen essays, fifteen ofwhich were published between 1989 and 1997 as articles in magazines (New Republic and Daedalus) and scholarlyjournals (Asian Survey ana Journal ofAsian Studies) or as chapters in edited works on China. Thirteen of the essays are by Nathan, two are jointly written by him and Tianjian Shi, and one is a joint product ofNathan and Helena Ho.© 1999 by University„In china>s Transition," says the blurb on the bookjacket, Nathan "assesses the prospects for democracy [in China] at the close ofthe twentieth century." This is somewhat misleading because the essays, written at different times in differing contexts, deal with a wide variety of subjects that are not focused, per se, 212 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. i, Spring 1999 on the theme suggested by die title. In fact, the book concludes not with any grand summation ofits purported thesis but with an article on "Human Rights and American China Policy" that bemoans the declining interest in the West in the human rights issue in China. It urges the United States to separate "human rights from democratization, focus on abuses that are illegal under international law, and preempt the charge ofcultural imperialism by framing the issue as one ofcompliance with international norms" (p. 248). And, it adds, "the promotion ofhuman rights serves Western interests" (p. 251). However, since all the essays touch upon one aspect or another of the nature of sociopolitical change in China, they are, according to Nathan's introductory remarks, linked to the broader subject of China's transition to democracy and thereby provide a structural coherence to the book. This review, with some hesitation, follows Nathan's line ofreasoning. In 1995, Nathan was attacked and reviled by the Chinese communists for his Foreword to Li Zhisui's book, The Private Life ofChairman Mao; Li had been Mao's personal physician, and his memoir reveals lurid details ofMao's kinky sex life. The Chinese used strong language to condemn '"the degenerate and dirty methods of Li Zhisui and Andrew J. Nathan' . . . [for attempting] not merely [to drag] through the mud a leader ofthe Chinese people and of the world communist movement, or to blacken socialist new China, but gravely to insult the Chinese race!" (p. 2). As a consequence, Nathan was denied a visa to China in 1995. Nathan opens the first chapter with this episode and makes it the basis for explaining the layout of the book. The episode, says Nadian, reveals the gap between the Chinese communist and Western liberal norms ofdialogue and, therefore, the need to reflect on the challenges posed...