Kavita Philip

Mahmood Monshipouri

Andrew J. Nathan

Neil Englehart

Both human rights and globalization are powerful ideas and processes, capable of transforming the world in profound ways. Notwithstanding their universal claims, however, the processes are constructed, and they draw their power from the specific cultural and political contexts in which they are constructed. Far from bringing about a harmonious cosmopolitan order, they have stimulated conflict and opposition. In the context of globalization, as the idea of human rights has become universal, its meaning has become one more terrain of struggle among groups with their own interests and goals. Part I of this volume looks at political and cultural struggles to control the human rights regime -- that is, the power to construct the universal claims that will prevail in a territory -- with respect to property, the state, the environment, and women. Part II examines the dynamics and counterdynamics of transnational networks in their interactions with local actors in Iran, China, and Hong Kong. Part III looks at the prospects for fruitful human rights dialogiue between competing universalisms that by definition are intolerant of conradiction and averse to compromise.

Constructing Human Rights in the Age of Globalization

David Johnson

Evelyn S. Rawski

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

Popular Culture in Late Imperial China

Larry Diamond

Marc F. Plattner

Leading experts on China offer their enlightening analysis on one of the most crucial and complex questions facing the future of international politics. Moving toward open markets and international trade has brought extraordinary economic success to China, yet its leadership still maintains an authoritarian grip over its massive population. From repressing political movements to controlling internet traffic, China’s undemocratic policies present an attractive model for other authoritarian regimes. But can China continue its growth without political reform? In Will China Democratize?, Andrew J. Nathan, Larry Diamond, and Marc F. Plattner present valuable analysis for anyone wondering if, when or how China might evolve politically. Since the Journal of Democracy’s very first issue in January 1990, which featured articles reflecting on the then-recent Tiananmen Square massacre, the Journal has regularly published articles about China and its politics. By bringing together the wide spectrum of views that have appeared in the Journal’s pages—from contributors including Fang Lizhi, Perry Link, Michel Oksenberg, Minxin Pei, Henry S. Rowen, and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo— Will China Democratize? provides a clear view of the complex forces driving change in China’s regime and society.

Will China Democratize?

Orville Schell

Perry Link

Liang  Zhang

On the night of June 3-4, 1989, Chinese troops violently crushed the largest pro-democracy demonstrations in the history of the communist regime. In this extraordinary collection of hundreds of internal government and Communist Party documents, secretly smuggled out of China, we learn how these events came to pass from behind the scenes. The material reveals how the most important decisions were made; and how the turmoil split the ruling elite into radically opposed factions. The book includes the minutes of the crucial meetings at which the Elders decided to cashier the pro-reform Party secretary Zhao Ziyang and to replace him with Jiang Zemin, to declare martial law, and finally to send the troops to drive the students from the Square. Just as the Pentagon Papers laid bare the secret American decision making behind the Vietnam War and changed forever our view of the nation's political leaders, so too has The Tiananmen Papers altered our perception of how and why the events of June 4 took the shape they did. Its publication has proven to be a landmark event in Chinese and world history.

The Tiananmen Papers

Robert S. Ross

"A strong antidote to the growing sinophobia in the U.S."--Wall Street Journal

China's Search for Security

The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress

One of America's preeminent authorities on modern China explores the central issues facing the worlds most populous country. On democracy, human rights, and the move to integrate China into the international economy; on Mao Zedong's regime and the reform since his death; and on the Taiwan experiment and Hong Kong's reintegration with China, Nathan offers an accessible introduction to the intricate web of contemporary Chinese politics and China's changing place in the global system.

China's Transition

Nathan explored the roots of the Tiananmen tragedy in Deng Xiaoping's ten-year reform. How will cultural values and attitudes shape China's political development? What will be the impact of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the West? Drawing on ground-breaking empirical research, Nathan measures the expectations of individual Chinese and their attitudes toward government and democracy.

Dilemmas of Reform and Prospects for Democracy

China's Crisis

Andrew Scobell

Despite its impressive size and population, economic vitality, and drive to upgrade its military, China remains a vulnerable nation surrounded by powerful rivals and potential foes. Understanding ChinaÕs foreign policy means fully appreciating these geostrategic challenges, which persist even as the country gains increasing influence over its neighbors. Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell analyze ChinaÕs security concerns on four fronts: at home, with its immediate neighbors, in surrounding regional systems, and in the world beyond Asia. By illuminating the issues driving Chinese policy, they offer a new perspective on the countryÕs rise and a strategy for balancing Chinese and American interests in Asia. Though rooted in the present, Nathan and ScobellÕs study makes ample use of the past, reaching back into history to illuminate the people and institutions shaping Chinese strategy today. They also examine Chinese views of the United States; explain why China is so concerned about Japan; and uncover ChinaÕs interests in such problematic countries as North Korea, Iran, and the Sudan. The authors probe recent troubles in Tibet and Xinjiang and explore their links to forces beyond ChinaÕs borders. They consider the tactics deployed by mainland China and Taiwan, as Taiwan seeks to maintain autonomy in the face of Chinese advances toward unification. They evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of ChinaÕs three main power resourcesÑeconomic power, military power, and soft power. The authors conclude with recommendations for the United States as it seeks to manage ChinaÕs rise. Chinese policymakers understand that their nationÕs prosperity, stability, and security depend on cooperation with the United States. If handled wisely, the authors believe, relations between the two countries can produce mutually beneficial outcomes for both Asia and the world.

What do the Chinese mean by the word “democracy”? When they say that their political system is “democratic,” does this mean that they share our ideas about liberty, civil rights, and self government? With the recent improvement in relations between China and the West, such questions are no longer merely academic. They are basic to an understanding of the Chinese people and their state, both now and in the future. In Chinese Democracy, Andrew J. Nathan tackles these in issues in depth, drawing upon much fresh and unfamiliar material. He begins with a vivid history of the short-lived democracy movement of 1978-81, where groups of young people in a number of Chinese cities started issuing outspoken publications and putting up posters detailing their complaints and opinions. Apparently condoned at first by the post-Mao regime, the movement flourished; then it was crushed, its leaders tried and jailed. With quotes from many of the participants and their works, Nathan constructs—for the first time—a poignant picture of the burst of liberal activity, at the same time showing how distinctly Chinese it was and how the roots of its failure lay as much in history as in current political necessity. To demonstrate this, Nathan investigates the nature of the democratic tradition in China, tracing it back to the close of the imperial era at the end of the nineteenth century and the works of Liang Qichao, the country’s most brilliant journalist and most influential modern political thinker. We see how Liang deeply influenced Mao Zedong, and how conflicts between party dictatorship and popular participation, between bureaucratic authority and individual rights, between Mao’s harsh version of democracy and Deng Xiaoping’s more liberal one, remain to this day unresolved and potentially dangerous. For example, as Nathan shows, there was apparently a serious move toward liberalization projected on the highest government levels in the years after Mao’s death, yet the move failed. In a tour de force of scholarship, Nathan shows through an extended study of the many Chinese constitutions put force since the 1911 Revolution that individual rights have always been forced to give away to the needs and ambitions of the state. Democracy in China has traditionally been admired mainly for what it can help accomplish, not for any human rights it may embody. Finally, making use of scores of interviews with émigrés from the mainland, the author analyzes the extraordinary role played by the press in forming public attitudes in China, and then goes on to show what happened in 1980 when the authorities for the first time conducted direct elections to the county-level people’s congresses. It was a splendid shambles. Much of this story has never been told before. Chinese Democracy is a highly original and convincing book on a subject of immediate concern, a rich combination of reportage and research by one of our best-informed China specialists. No one can read it without gaining an entirely new perspective on the nature of democracy as the Chinese practice it—and, incidentally, as we practice it too.

Chinese Democracy

Brian C. H. Fong

Jieh-min Wu

Bringing together a team of cutting-edge researchers based in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indo-Pacific countries, this book focuses on the tug of war between China’s influence and forces of resistance in Hong Kong, Taiwan and selected countries in its surrounding jurisdictions. China’s influence has met growing defiance from citizens in Hong Kong and Taiwan who fear the extinction of their valued local identities. However, the book shows that resistance to China’s influence is a global phenomenon, varying in motivation and intensity from region to region and country to country depending on the forms of China’s influence and the balances of forces in each society. The book also advances a concentric center-periphery framework for comparing different forms of extra-jurisdictional Chinese influence mechanisms, ranging from economic, military and diplomatic influences to united front operations. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, international relations, geopolitics, Chinese politics, Hong Kong-China relations, Taiwan and Asian politics.

Andrew J. Nathan

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