What Does China Think? - Softcover

Mark Leonard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007230680 ISBN 13: 9780007230686

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2008

Synopsis

The author asks the reader to forget everything they thought they knew about China - and start again. He introduces the thinkers that are shaping China's future rather than those who developed its past.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Leonard founded the leading independent think tank The Foreign Policy Centre at the age of 24, under the patronage of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He also wrote the famous pamphlet, Rebranding Britain, coining the phrase `Cool Britannia'. He is now Director of Foreign Policy at the Centre for European Reform. He has written regular commentary for all the leading newspapers and magazines, has presented the BBC' Analysis programme, and appeared as a commentator on CNN.

From Publishers Weekly:

Commonly characterized as a juggernaut monomaniacally focused on breakneck economic growth, China is actually riven by a lively, far-reaching debate over its future, argues this inquisitive study. Leonard (Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century) divides Chinese intellectuals into a New Right that wants to extend laissez-faire market reforms and an increasingly influential New Left that decries rising inequality, corruption and environmental destruction and wants a strong government to rein in capitalist elites and protect workers. Meanwhile, political reformers push cautiously for local and Communist Party elections against a consensus that associates democracy with chaotic mob rule or national dismemberment. China's foreign policy is split between liberal internationalists and truculent neo-comms who contend that China must be ready to use force against its enemies. The author notes that these ideological divisions resemble those in Western countries, but emphasizes the distinctiveness of Chinese ideas, like the concept of the deliberative dictatorship of a one-party state that stays responsive to popular pressures, or a Walled World where globalization enhances rather than erodes the autonomy of national governments. Leonard's is a lucid, eye-opening account of China's intellectual scene and its growing importance to the world. (May)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0007230680
• ISBN 13: 9780007230686
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224