Review By Loyd Eskildson
The People's Republic of China (PRC) is the largest, most rapidly changing player on the world stage today. David M. Lampton has not only studied the PRC for 38 years, but also visited and interviewed its top leaders. He believes that China will be fully occupied for the next 10-15+ years dealing with its domestic employment (providing employment to the 10 million labor-market entrants each year, plus the 300 million more leaving its farms between now and 2020), technology development, education, health care, natural resource, environment, and infrastructure needs and will not be a destabilizing force. Just its need for new cities to accommodate anticipated migration requires creating building new cities the size of New York every four months for 14 years.
Lambert begins The Three Faces of Chinese Power by carefully defining the term 'power' - "the authoritative ability to define and achieve objectives;" methods to achieve this include 'might' (coercive power though military action), 'money' (can obtain coercive power, influence others through potential purchases), and 'minds' (ideational, soft power reflected in quality of leadership and innovation). After studying China's approach to state power dating back some 2,500 years, Lampton concludes that their aim is to win domestic and international support for its agenda, see it through to …
No comments:
Post a Comment