The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State by Zhang Weiwei World Century
Few scholars from the mainland are as urbane, connected and savvy as Zhang Weiwei. He should be amply equipped to write an effective rebuttal to criticisms about human rights and free markets, without engaging in boosterism or intellectual dishonesty. He has missed the chance to do so.
Zhang begins by shedding any pretence of objectivity: The China Wave is dedicated to the late Deng Xiaoping (Zhang served as his English interpreter). For Zhang, Chinese history comes in two sections. First, a past that was glorious until Western humiliations cowed a once-proud civilisation. Second is China since 1978, when Deng's reforms brought prosperity. Except for a brief mention of the Cultural Revolution and other Mao Zedong-era tumult, the problems of authoritarianism go unmentioned.
There is no disputing the improvements in the average Chinese citizen's standard of living. But Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea all managed to turn harsh authoritarianism into prosperity without starving millions of their citizens to death.
Zhang spills much ink denigrating the 'inefficiency' of India. But any system that unleashes two decades of terror and starvation before spreading breakneck prosperity alongside ruinous pollution and brutal social dislocation seems 'inefficient' too. The victims of the Mao years might opt for the less glamorous approach India's democracy has brought.
Zhang claims no single individual can hold China's system hostage today. But the recent fall of former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai, and the panic in the party's top ranks, suggests otherwise.