The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression

This book is about hidden assumption and logic that US politicians, scholars, and business elites use when they view the problems of China's political system. According to Mann, the mainstream view of China's political system in the US is the Soothing Scenario (P.2). Advocates of the Soothing Scenario maintain that if China can sustain its rapid economic growth, China will be eventually destined for democracy or political liberalization. Therefore the US government should try to integrate China into the international community (P.103) and trade freely with China. Another mainstream view of China's political system in the US is the Upheaval Scenario (P.7). Purveyors of this scenario including Gerald Segal and Gordon Chang predict that China is on the verge of political unrest and economic collapse because the one-party political system is not capable for handling a multitude of political and social problems such as the continuing prevalent of corruption and growing disparity between rich and poor. To Mann, both scenarios are at best questionable and at worst outright fallible. In this book, Mann advocates that China's rapid economic growth can be sustained but the Communist Party continues to arrest and detain political dissidents and China will remains entirely undemocratic (P.11). The so-called Third Scenario maintains that for decades, Chinese political leaders including Deng xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao have never endorsed any democratic political activity or tolerated any troublesome public opinion that is against their state policies (P.59). The current China foreign policy in the US has been skewed by the Business roundtable mentality that place much emphasis on economic interest so that the "P-factor" such as Carter's human right policy, Regan's anti-communism, and Bush's campaign for democracy (P.88) were not directed towards China. According to Mann, the US government should adopt the right approach to goading China into moving to political liberalization or democracy. Democracy will not automatically come to China if the US government continues to carry out its current China foreign policy that only benefits business interest in the US and China (P.111). For the previous 10 years, a group of academic scholars such as David Shambaugh (China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation), Kellee Tsai, (Capitalism without Democracy: The Private Sector in Contemporary China), Cheng Li (China's Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy), and Bruce Dickson (Wealth into Power: The Communist Party's embrace of China's Provate Sector) have challenged the conventional wisdom that rapid economic development will not lead to political liberalization and democracy in China. China's political development is not a linear path and the emergence of political liberalization and democracy will be predicated upon the interplay of heterogeneous socioeconomic forces, institutional developments, leadership succession, and demographic trend

In 'The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression,' author James Mann reminds us in no uncertain terms of the forest that has been obscured by the trees; despite three and a half decades of catch phrases ("engagement," "integration," etc.) and speech after rhetoric-filled speech on behalf of various US presidents, secretaries of state, etc. to the tune that free market reform will inexorably lead to political reform, China is still run by a ruthless Leninist clique and there is NO evidence to suggest this will change in the foreseeable future. They say the best books tell you what you already know and perhaps that's why I enjoyed this forceful, well documented, and relentlessly logical little tome so much. Although it's easy to see that Western leaders are now kowtowing to Beijing in order maintain trade, Mann helps to fill in quite a few blanks. He points out, for example, that China analysts based in the US are often sponsored by the very corporations that need America's citizenry to believe in the "China fantasy." Mann also asks some very tough questions, such as: if China is still an autocracy in two or three decades will that a.) mean that "engagement" (or whatever they call it in the future) will have failed? And b.) Will it really be in the US's best interest to still be dealing with such a government at that time? I thought this book was excellent, but I wish it had been a little wider in scope. Mann plots the history of China-US relations but only goes as far back as the Nixon years. I believe that America's belief that change in China is inevitable is rooted in the Roosevelt years when the country was taken in by Chiang Kai-shek's conversion to Christianity and the tireless campaign of his Macon, Georgia educated (and Christian, of course) wife Soong Mei-ling. I also think that the author should have widened the scope beyond the US. For example, in Canada, demonstrators who assembled to protest a visit by Jiang Zemin were pepper sprayed by the national police acting under direct order from the (Liberal Party) prime minister, Jean Chretian. In England, there were similar incidents when protesters had their signs unlawfully confiscated, also during a visit from Jiang. Jiang berated his hosts for not being able to control their own populace before paradoxically demanding to know whether he "looked like a dictator." Members of the British govermnet and royal family made this up to Jiang later by singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" in his honor. Perhaps the author believed that such examples (he gives many examples of American complicity and naivety) would dilute his argument, but if done well it could have reinforced it. (That said, it's solid enough.) In any case, one wonders just how far backward Western leaders and decision makers are willing to bend in order to accommodate China - not only in the US, but in all the Western world. Time will certainly tell. Troy Parfitt, author

I like reading articles of James Mann at Los Angeles Times, and this book gives me more understanding of American policy towards China. Recently, the mayor of Pasadena, California used almost exact words as James quoted in his book to respond to the criticism by the human rights groups for his invitation of Beijing "Olympic float" in Rose Parade 2008. I wish that Mr. Mann could have also commented on a new wave of movement in China of denouncing Chinese communist party which was trigured by an article in Epoch Times, "Nine Commentaries on Communist Party". This book is high recommended.

"The China Fantasy" by James Mann succeeds in thoroughly debunking the widely-held view that capitalism will inevitably bring democracy to China. Providing a brief historical account of U.S.-Chinese relations from the Nixon administration to the present, Mr. Mann makes clear that business opportunism has driven the agenda at the expense of human rights and democracy in both countries. Mr. Mann's decades of subject matter expertise have prepared him to present a concise and persuasive work on an important topic that should be widely read and discussed by policy makers and concerned citizens alike. Mr. Mann's specific focus is on the public relations aspect of U.S.-Chinese relations. Mr. Mann contends that a succession of business-friendly politicians have sold the American public on what he calls the 'soothing scenario', or the prospect of a democracy that will somehow emerge as a result of China's deepening economic ties with the West. Mr. Mann explains that this rubric has provided cover for high-ranking U.S. officials who have often used their connections to smooth the way for multinational corporations to set up shop in China in order to exploit its abundant supply of cheap labor. However, Mr. Mann provides a number of counter arguments explaining why the soothing scenario is a highly problematic proposition, with perhaps the most persuasive point being that democracy could allow the masses of destitute Chinese peasants to easily undo the privileges that the relatively small Chinese upper and middle classes have enjoyed under the protection of the single-party system. Mr. Mann alerts us to the importance of demanding China to enact democratic reforms sooner rather than later, when the Chinese economy might become too strong for outside influence to have any effect. Declining U.S. wages and plant closures caused by increased competition with repressed Chinese labor is but one well-known problem; the Chinese government's support of authoritarian regimes in other countries so that it can propagandize to its domestic audience is a lesser-known but perhaps more serious issue. While one would be hard pressed to detect a political bias in Mr. Mann's writing, the implicit lesson that capitalism can be wholly congruous with governmental repression serves to rebuke free-marketeers such as Thomas Friedman and provides grist for those who may be critical of globalization. Interestingly, Mr. Mann makes a series of short-range predictions about how the media might frame its coverage of the 2008 Olympic games to be held in China. Mr. Mann believes that on the one hand, superficial news coverage will intend to pacify Western audiences while on the other hand, nationalistic themes will serve to paper over the reality of growing inequality on the Chinese mainland. The author also suspects that China will assuage the West with hints of reform that will probably never materialize while cynically parlaying its moment in the world spotlight to attract renewed

jim mann has written a clear-eyed analysis of american perspectives, in their various hues, on china, all of which tend to excuse beijing's record of repression and authoritarianism. while the self-interest of investors and the timidity of the american political establishment - republican and democratic both - have not only tolerated but sought to excuse chinese gross abuse of human rights and freedoms, mann's book systematically peels away the rationales, excuses, willful ignorances, and tacit acceptance of china's conduct. he also demolishes the self-delusions of many leading columnists who are burdened by a fatuous belief in the inevitability of democracy's rise in china, a belief based as much on their ignorance as their naivete about china. building on his earlier book, "about face," mann challenges american policy makers and investors (for example google and yahoo, which have acceded to demands of china's secret police for users' data and the censoring of their websites) to bring the same standards of international behavior that they demand of the rest of the world to the leadership in beijing. this is an important book.