Reply to Ross Terrill

Not unlike life itself, history is interpretation. In many ways the past is just as unpredictable as the future, depending on who is looking at it, how, why, when, where, and under what circumstances. The exchange between Ross Terrill and me is a good example of how American politics and foreign policy influence (however subtly) the views, including the religious views, of China specialists and vice versa.

Preoccupied with the carnage of the American war in, and occupation of, Iraq and Americas imperial designs in the world, I saw Terrill's Chinese Empire as mirroring that of the United States. His book is a litany of negatives to drive home the point that from antiquity to the People's Republic, China has been a powerful authoritarian state, and that it is today ruthlessly oppressive toward its own people. Along with his criticisms, Terrill's comments on my review are a further amplification of this litany.

Because of Terrill's past association with the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) in the 1960s (when we first met in Hong Kong) and his popularity among a substantial following (including myself) within our church, I felt compelled to share my critique of his book with our constituency.

Basically, I have no qualms about my reading of Terrill's book as a thick interpretation of Chinese history in which he consistently accentuates the negative. While not glossing over China's flaws (of which there are many, as Terrill keeps reminding us), I prefer to look at and encourage positive things that may point to a hopeful future for the world, including China. In short, Terrill says the cup is half empty, while I say it is half full. Neither of us is incorrect; we differ only in our perceptions. My review, therefore, focuses more on the book's subtitle, "And What It Means for the United States," as an attempt to ferret out his underlying assumptions.

Terrill says that I was "blinded by [my] distaste for the global capitalist jungle.'" Here, I was simply echoing his own term for capitalism—"jungle" (albeit writ large and updated)—which he says that he is against, along with the "prison" of communism, in his 1971 book 800,000,000: The Real China (p. 234). In The New Chinese Empire, however, there is no mention of this jungle. In another, earlier study Terrill waxes eloquent about R. H. Tawney's view of capitalism "as a creaking system; a jungle wherein economic struggle took priority over social purpose; with persons treated as means and wealth as an end" (R. H. Tawney and His Times [1974], p. 255). After more than three decades, has Terrill jettisoned these invaluable insights, which are much needed to temper a rapacious global economy driven by the United States, now joined by the PRC?

"Germane" to Terrill's reply to my review in China Review International is his seeing essentially the same critique "elsewhere." That elsewhere happens to be a China newsletter of our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), of which, by virtue of his past connections, Terrill is on the mailing list. Though the critique in the church newsletter is essentially the same as that which appears in CRI, in the newsletter version there were significant changes. For example, the part where I mention that "he was 'expelled from China' in 1992"—which in part "helped propel [him] to write this book" (p. xiv)—was intentionally omitted from what was submitted to the newsletter. Also, for a church readership that may not have the benefit of a background in Asian studies, I tried to do a shorter review, avoid academic terminology, and use familiar church idioms, even to the extent of choosing words appropriate to a sermon—for example, encapsulating my critique within a biblical text, "Why See Only the Speck?" (Matthew 7:3). I cannot imagine why Terrill would compare what was written in a scholarly journal to a contribution to an in-house church publication!

Terrill suggests that in my writing about history, political theory, and empire, I am "out of [my] depth." I beg to differ. In this day and age of...