On China Wave, The

This is a highly interesting book, really packed with so many insights that I don’t have the space to go into them here. Zhang is rather succinct, so attempting to do so would essentially be me re-writing this book. Although I don’t know how much I am persuaded by Zhang’s view (in large part because he waxes poetic and offers little, if any space, to criticism), I do think he makes one really powerful insight—it’s even reflected in the title.

Ultimately, Zhang finds that China is unique because it represents the emergence of a civilizational state. The world has historically been a world of empires and kinship-based polities with a few other forms of states popping up now and then. Today, it is dominated by nation-states. However, Zhang finds that China’s size, population, long traditions, and cultural depth are pervasive in all aspects of Chinese society. With these things, China becomes, then, a state not of a nation, but of an entire civilization. We historians are generally rather critical of the idea of “civilization,” but I do think Zhang may be onto something here. My main question is about comparison: Why is China a civilizational state, but not India? Is it because India has absorbed many Western ideas (above all, democracy and capitalist economics)? Is it because India does not hold all the territory it once did (I’m thinking especially of Pakistan and Bangladesh)? Or is it something else?

Ultimately, what I gained from the book is that China’s “civilizational state,” in Zhang’s view, is not rooted in democracy for the sake of democracy, capitalism for the sake of capitalism, individual rights for the sake of individual rights, but rather out of humanistic concerns. The traditional Chinese family structure is still, in large part, intact—for just one example. Maybe, but I’d like to read what Chinese critics have to say about these so I can really evaluate two perspectives.

As a disciple of Deng Xiaoping, Zhang finds that China’s motto continues to be, “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches the mice.” In my opinion, it’s a very poetic (perhaps even romantic) style of governance, but I think we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see if Zhang’s predictions and analysis are accurate.