ch. 14: the "greater china" puzzle, 1980-2010

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Is it "Da Zhonghua" or "Da Zhongguo"? Can Chinese skill in networking of all kinds facilitate the interaction of Chinese people in the PRC, Taiwan, and the diaspora? Can the Chinese get beyond the heritage of the Qin unification and find viable ways of interacting with each other without the constraints and contradic¬tions of a single-centered polity? These are very important problems for all of us, not just for the Chinese, in the world of the next century.

Murray Rubinstein, ed., The Other Taiwan
Tu Wei-ming, ed., The Living Tree
Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor.
Lynn Pan, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Overseas Chinese. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

[clay dube]

Jack's focused on diaspora and multiple entities, but any history of China's foreign affairs would be improved by drawing on the insights of many authors, including these works (some of which are aimed at general as well as academic audiences):

Harding, A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China Since 1972 (1992)
Ross, Negotiating Cooperation: The United States and China, 1969-1989 (1995)
Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (1995)
Kim ed., China and the World: Chinese Foreign Policy Faces the New Millenium (1998)
Lampton, Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 (2001)
Shambaugh (ed.), Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics (2005)
Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (2007)
Lampton, The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money and Minds (2008)

(Let me apologize to the many authors I've neglected here and encourage others to address this deficiency.)

Others have focused on how China's economic rise affords it greater soft power, though a recent study by the Chicago Council on World Affairs and the East Asia Institute show that China's gains in this realm have been more limited than some imagine.

[Anonymous]

John:

I want to point out that the recovery of Taiwan is important to China for several reasons:

1) Unfettered access to the Pacific. If you look at a map of East Asia you will realize that Japan, along with her islands, Taiwan, and Philippines can form an effective blockade of Chinese access to the Pacific. During the Cold War, this blockade by US military was real.

2) An independent Taiwan may be allied with US or Japan. Today Mongolia tilts to Russia, while South Korea has US military stationed there. Does China want to see an independent Taiwan being possibly allied with US or Japan, and have their military stationed in Taiwan?

3) Reparation for a half century of Japanese aggression. The damage done by Japan to China was tremendous. Unlike the US, China was too weak to exact blood revenge against Japan. Today, many Japanese openly deny their historical crimes, while being protected by a powerful US military. Many Chinese feel a deep sense of injustice. Therefore, the return of Taiwan to China will not be given up.

If the unification of Taiwan with China means Da Zhongguo, then that's what the Chinese want. It may appear to be another single-centered polity tradition, but the reasons I listed above should be considered.

[Edit by="gchou on Apr 28, 7:27:49 PM"][/Edit]

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