What Does China Think?
The Age
Saturday April 19, 2008
What Does China Think?
Mark Leonard Fourth Estate, $27.99MOST BOOKS ON modern China talk about the economy. Mark Leonard, executive director of the European Council, focuses on the intellectual life of the country. On his first trip to China he realised that Westerners knew so little about the leading thinkers in the country and how they have been instrumental in bringing about economic change. He dedicated himself to studying contemporary Chinese thinkers and this highly readable, clearly informed volume is his attempt to enlighten us. And yes, repressive political regime notwithstanding, there is a "left" and "right" divide between neo-con free-marketeers such as Zhang Weiying (who wants to see the state completely dissolved) and the New Left thinkers such as Wang Hui who favour something of a welfare state model, saying that China is now caught between two extremes - misguided socialism and crony capitalism. The country's abysmal human rights record and whole democracy debate (the Chinese Government is determined not to follow the Russian example and liberalise society before the economy has been liberalised) is also part of the tale.
© 2008 The Age