It is an item of current conventional wisdom that the Chinese Communist Party, confronted with a population to whom communism no longer has any appeal, has resorted to an extreme form of nationalism to justify its rule over China. The principal message of Peter Hays Gries's fascinating book is that while this is true, it... Read More

The dream of Joe Studwell's title is the dream of the China market: of 1.3 billion consumers just waiting to be sold clothes, medicine, cars, toothpaste, or whatever else the dreamer has to offer. As an English writer of the 1840s put it: "If we could only persuade every person in China to lengthen his... Read More

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, the Chinese teach their children. They further instruct them that the rock that stands out from the river bank gets worn away by the current. In case the child still hasn't got the point, he will then be told that the tallest tree is the first to... Read More

Western enthusiasm for China waxes and wanes on long cycles. In the early 18th century it was waxing strong. "The constitution of their empire is the most excellent the world has ever seen," burbled Voltaire. The unfoxable Samuel Johnson scoffed at widespread popular conceptions of the "Chinese perfectly polite, and compleatly skill'd in all sciences."... Read More

Steven Mosher is a hero to those of us who hate and fear the current Chinese government. He has the honor of having been persona non grata in the People's Republic for twenty years — longer, I think, than any other American scholar. Mosher was the first social scientist from this country invited to do... Read More