Has China Won?: The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy

This was a very thoughtful and difficult to put down book. It had many things in it that *I already knew some things which puzzled me and things I wondered if they were true. So if you read it, do so with your cynical hat on. American are very uniformed about China so even if you read it with discretion, it gives you more information about China/Us relationships. I recommend it highly.

This is an easy to read book that offers critical insights on probably the most influential geopolitical event of this century, and that is the rise of China as well as the potential split of the world into a western and a China driven ecosystems. Given the author's political experience and opportunity to see many of the political dynamics first hand, he is able to explain many of the complex issues in easily understandable languages. However, this will not be an easy read for those who come with pre-conceived impressions of either China or the US because certain parts of the book will inadvertently create cognitive dissonance as the author presents facts and opinion that run counter to deep-rooted believes.For me who grew up getting most of my information from western media about China, my first shock came when I started to live in China. What I observed and experienced during my almost a decade of living there were quite different from my preconceived impressions of China and especially of the Chinese government. Reading this book gave me much clarity on how to explain this cognitive dissonance that I experienced.Like it or not, China will become the largest economy in the world. Therefore, it is important for individuals to understand China as it is and not based on opinions that are politically and ideologically biased. The Chinese government is no saint but neither is it the evil empire must be stopped before it managed to enslave the free world. The Chinese government is neither better nor worse than the US government. They should be assessed both by its merits and its short comings. This book offers many useful perspectives and facts to think about many issues.One common theme of the book is that the world is a complex place made of societies and countries that have different histories, cultures, availability of resources as well as geo-political realities. Despite the dominant belief in the western world, a one-size-fit-all political framework has never worked and will never work for all. The western liberal democratic ideals have undoubtedly helped many countries in the past couple centuries escape authoritarian rules and have done exceptionally well for the people. However, thinking of it as the ultimate political system that every country eventually should adopt is impractical, naïve and also the cause of many conflicts in the world today. Many countries that adopted the same system flopped. The book spent gave many examples and offered logical explanations.Just like everything in life, there are limitations to any political system, regardless how successful it has been. There are prior assumptions. It works under certain circumstances and doesn't in others. Mindlessly promoting any system without clear understanding of its limitation and the objective realities of the environment will likely yield disappointing or even disastrous results.In summary, I think this is a book worth reading if one wants to understand the complex geopolitical tensions happening between the east and the west. The book gave me a clear mental framework to parse many events that are happening today that don't make sense on the surface. I believe this mental framework will be helpful to me in navigating the increasing complexity of the future world.

An insightful book written by a former Singapore diplomat and UN ambassador who has the privilege to be immersed in both Asian and the West culture. Its main points have been summarized well in other reviews. As a Chinese American who grow up in China, I can attest to his description of Chinese culture and mindset. More specifically:- CCP is first and foremost Chinese, not communist. Even though the party started as a communist party, its leaders' mind are occupied with thousands of years of Chinese culture and wisdom. They're pragmatic, supple and flexible. A closed society with an open mind.- Chinese culture historically emphasizes cultural and diplomatic influence, not military conquer. Contrary to what western media's depiction, a military and expansionist China is not what Chinese leaders or Chinese people want. For people who refers to South China Sea as a counter example, the author has a detailed description of the history in that region and in particular US's involvement and you should read it. The gist is that even though Chinese government has made mistakes, it is by no means proof that China is a military threat to its neighbors in that region.- China is not interested in exporting communism to the rest of the world, nor do they believe in universality of the western democracy as the sole legitimate way of governance. This is partly rooted in the ancient Chinese philosophy/belief that the Middle Kingdom is the only rightful place for Chinese to live in. Even though CCP has supported communist revolution in other countries in early days after it gained power, the effort has long stopped after a friendly warning from Lee Kuan Yew. The country has focused instead on domestic economic development and reform.- Political suppression does exist in China, but CCP can't rule 1.3 billion people through just suppression. To go against the will of 1.3 billion with a suppressive stronghold is just not sustainable. Chinese people long for order and harmony, and there's a high degree of trust endowed on the central government by the Chinese people. So far the government has delivered on its promises, and Chinese people have seen their standard of living elevated dramatically over the past 30 years. A third-party poll (Edelman Trust Barometer 2018) shows that China ranked the highest in their government trust level (84%) compared to US at 15th place (33%).I also find it interesting that one of the reviews that gathered the most "Helpful" clicks is one that simply dismisses most of Mahbubani's insight as "propaganda", "just copy" without any reference, data or analysis to support the claim. It speaks volume about the difficulty of getting Mahbubani's message through to American's collective mind. As the book noted in Chapter 5, it's almost impossible for US to make a U-turn in its policy-making, not even bringing the very idea that US may be making critical strategic mistakes to public for an open discussion, despite it having the freest media in the world.I applaud the author's effort and hope it can make a meaningful impact.

Mahbubani’s book “Has China Won?” makes for uncomfortable and brutal reading as he attempts to assess the weaknesses and failures of America and China in their international relations. The book has much useful, interesting and original information about China’s political system – and especially how it views itself compared to the Western world.I have tried hard to read it dispassionately and with an open mind. But my impression is of considerable criticism of America’s diplomatic incompetence, military aggression and closed minds, whilst China is sorely misunderstood by the West. The chapter I found most contentious is “Should China Become Democratic”? This is Chinese Communist Party propaganda.When you’ve read this book read “Silent Invasion: China’s influence in Australia” by Clive Hamilton to see how China REALLY behaves in the real world. How China is influencing and controlling foreign government policy, industry, universities, schools and even clubs by threats, infiltration, bribery, corruption and spying, whilst buying control of key infrastructures such as energy supplies and telecommunications and massive theft of technological developments.America is slammed by Mahbubani, comparing its current behaviour with that of the former Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, whilst China is now behaving more as America did in the past. He cites America’s inability to be flexible in its international relations because of its undisputed supremacy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He describes how the immense power of the US defence industry lobby groups use scaremongering to win enormous military contracts, whilst foreign diplomatic budgets have been slashed. Consequently, he says, America is now less able to apply diplomacy and more likely to adopt military responses to support its illusion of eternal US supremacy and exceptional virtue.On the other hand Mahbubani says China takes a long term patient approach to dealing with America, whilst deeply puzzled by America’s actions. To resolve these differences, he suggests strategic goals both sides must adopt for peaceful coexistence, since despite misperceptions by China and America they both recognise war would be cataclysmic. In reality, it seems that only America must adopt these goals because Mahbubani gives inadequate attention to China’s aggressive threats (and acts) of financial penalties and sanctions against countries that oppose their human rights record, new security laws in Hong Kong, aggressive build-up of military and space weapons, covert spying and control of vital infrastructures. Countries including America, Australia and Britain are all under threat from China in these regards.I do not agree with many of Mahbubani’s conclusions. He is rightly tough on America but ignores China’s many transgressions. But my understanding is enhanced of the complex dynamics of one the most important changes to our civilisation in the last two thousand years.

Definitely worth reading. The book is well researched and provides lots of useful information on how the "democratic" world needs to better understand China. Having only visited China once and the USA frequently my ability to validate the view on China is limited. However, we owe it to China to better understand its position and not close our eyes to the weaknesses of today's Western democracies. For me the key point of the book is that we have to adapt to living together with China. If we succeed the world will be a much better place for all. Fighting China in the way of the 20th Century will be a very bad outcome for all.

Has China Won?By Kishore Mahbubani, Hachette Book Group. 2020. 310 pp.Review by David WillersReaders are spoilt for choice when it comes to China and the West. Literally hundreds of books are brought out annually on this very subject. But with current tensions flaring between China and America, this latest comprehensive work by Kishore Mahbubani, a Singapore based academic, goes a long way to providing some objective background to the growing historic cleavage. Entitled 'Has China Won' Mahbubani answers for me, the famous Needham Question. Prof Joseph Needham, a British Marxist biochemist and later well known Sinologist (author of the multi-volume series on Science and Civilisation in China) wondered why China has been overtaken by the West in science and technology, despite having been the first civilisation to develop gunpowder, the magnetic compass and paper and printing - the foundation stones of western civilisation and development from the time of Galileo onwards.Needham attributes the reasons these inventions failed to transform Chinese society in the same way they had Western society, to Chinese feudalism, lack of property rights, and rigid centralised political control among other reasons.However, in the last seventy years, China has blossomed economically, advancing more in this brief space of time than in the preceding three thousand years. The answer to why this happened is also the answer to the reasons behind the current impasse between China and the west.Mahbubani identifies Chinese protectionism, unfair Chinese trade and commercial practices and the leveraging of Chinese technical progress on the back of imported technology - 'technology theft on a scale the world has never seen before.' He says the most explosive period of China's growth took place after it joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, when it was permitted to join the WTO as a 'self-declared' developing country. The developed country members supported the application believing that China would wean itself off the tariff wall privileges protecting developing countries, but in practice China has refused to do so.Matters came to a head when in 2018, one of China's best friends, Hank Paulson, the former US treasury secretary, called Beijing out: "China hides behind WTO rules meant for poor developing countries. 17 years after joining the WTO, China has still not opened its economy to foreign competition in so many areas. It retains joint venture requirements and ownership limits. And it uses technical standards, subsidies, licensing procedures and regulation as non-tariff barriers to trade and investment. This is unacceptable. It is why the Trump administration has argued that the WTO system needs to be modernised and changed and I agree."How then can China extricate itself from these charges? Its quite ironic really - the west originally stole the key elements of progress (compass, gunpowder etc) and built their economies, and now the Chinese are being criticised for doing the same in reverse and in a sense taking back what was theirs in the first place.Mahbubani sets out to correct the big picture and suggests China would do well to ditch its Marxist contempt for businessmen and re-gain the confidence of western business communities who feel 'ripped off' by China's blatant abuse and manipulation of the WTO rules. For a country that puts rockets in space and has more high speed trains than the rest of the world put together, it feels wrong for China to insist that "under the WTO's agreements on intellectual property, developed countries are under an obligation to provide incentives to their companies to transfer technology to less developed countries." No wonder America is thinking of leaving the WTO!But paradoxically, as Mahbubani notes, this WTO arena is a space which offers hope for dialogue between the two superpowers. China, he says must, despite the familiarity of Chinese officials with Marxist literature which takes such a derisive view of capitalism, launch a major effort to regain the trust of Western business communities including the American business community.Constructive engagement can only flourish however when the other party offers something to be constructive about. Can the CCP embrace a multi-party democracy in China as Russia did? The omens currently are not good when one looks at the way China has abrogated its treaty with the United Kingdom over Hong Kong. But as Mahbubani points out the CCP has also become a 'strong and competent communist party' behaving as a 'regional and stable actor' . It is a 'status quo' power rather than a 'revolutionary' power.' The west should appreciate this aspect more. Unlike the old Soviet Russia, which supported terrorism abroad, the current CCP has no interest in interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. Even its support for North Korea is lukewarm, says Mahbubani, and China has difficult relations with the other regional communist country Vietnam. As to allegations that China is covertly or not so covertly deploying 'a broad range of party, state, and non-state actors to advance its influence seeking objectives' the author says there have been 'too few examples to suggest that there is a systemic effort by the Chinese government to intervene in other countries' affairs.' I think the author needs to do more empirical research in Africa!And again, more questions than answers are raised by Mahbubani. He cites the example of a Chinese student at an American university who made a commencement speech praising America's 'democracy and freedom....the fresh air that is worth fighting for.' Her speech went viral in China, watched by 50 million people, provoking Chinese government criticism, which was an overreaction, says the author. But the results of this criticism were very negative: the student in question felt obliged to post an apology online...'I hope in future to use my time abroad to promote Chinese culture.'There is a large section on the results of Deng Xiaoping's economic reform programme and the Chinese embrace of a market economy. China has flourished over the past 21 years, in part because it abused the benefits conferred upon it by WTO developing country membership, in part through intellectual property theft, in part because its population is docile and hardworking. Growth, stability and 'personal freedom' are the expressed goals of the CCP and president Xi. But Mahbubani wonders whether economic growth in the free market system China has chosen, is not going to be politically disruptive. 'It can create new political classes with the means to challenge the one party rule of the CCP.' There is a growing middle class, which, as in the west, could demand greater political participation. 'If government ignores these demands there could be a revolution on the streets and the government would be overthrown.' Why hasn't this yet happened in today's China? Because says the author there is an implicit social contract between the Chinese government and the Chinese people. 'As long as the Chinese government continues to deliver economic growth and social stability, the Chinese people will accept the rule of the CCP.'And here is the nub of the matter, which the book deals with perfectly fairly. On the one hand the CCP is creating a form of socialism 'with Chinese characteristics' - citizens have unparalleled freedom to travel abroad for example and to become personally wealthy. On the other hand, unlike as is the case in western democratic liberal societies with rule of law, the Chinese communist State is considered to be more important than the individual whereas the reverse is true in the West. The author quotes American vice president Mike Pence: "China's rulers aim to implement an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life."Part of this system comprises adherence to the 'social credit' scheme, started in 2014. It would be inconceivable to have such a scheme in the west where small infringements of an everyday nature such as speeding, or smoking in a non-smoking zone etc would count against your social credit score. If you get a low score you can for example be punished by being denied train tickets or suchlike privileges.It is steps such as these, taken not years ago but by today's CCP, schooled to good governance methods by its own admission, that raise suspicions about the general direction of travel in China. The CCP views history through a lens of historical determinism in the view of outsiders familiar with communism regimes elsewhere in the world. According to CCCP doctrine Humankind is heading towards a specific outcome, a dialectically materialistic outcome, and nothing can alter that.The 'big secret' of China, according to the author, is that the main reason why the country is so resilient is because China 'has one of the most intelligent governments in the world....the Chinese communist party recruits only the best graduates in China...selecting only the best minds among the population to serve in its ranks.' According to Prof Yuen Ang, University of Michigan, "China has in fact pursued significant political reforms - just not in the western manner. Instead of instituting multi-party elections, establishing formal protections for individual rights, or allowing free expression the CCP has (reorganised) its bureaucracy to make it amenable to accountability and competition, without giving up single party control." Prof Ang calls this "autocracy with democratic characteristics." - an ossified communist bureaucracy has become a highly adaptive capitalist machine.Space doesn't allow for a fuller discussion of the authors conclusions, the main conclusion of which is that a major geopolitical contest between America and China is both inevitable and avoidable. The dynamics are revisited: China's mistake in alienating the American business community, the WTO bending of trade rules by President Xi, intellectual property theft, Chinese companies operating as political agents of influence abroad, obliged to report secrets to the CCP. A big head of steam has built up against China. The New York Times' Roger Cohen says (2019) that the United States is now in a direct ideological war with China. Both Democrats and Republicans support Mr Trump on China. I'm not sure I agree with the author that westerners are imbued with a sense of 'the yellow peril' . He says Americans make a mistake when they focus on Chinese communism seeing it as a threat to America democracy. I don't think many readers will agree with this either; the CCP offends western liberals because it is patently, on the evidence of its own actions towards Tibet, the Uigers, Hong Kong and the Indian soldiers clubbed to death on the common border, a ruthless authoritarian regime suppressing human rights in the absence of a rule of law.But I take his point that the Chinese are heavily influenced by their cultural roots, and that there is a belief in Beijing that America and China have more in common than they think and should operate as allies rather than as foes. They should work together on the environment, on bringing peace to the Muslim world, and so on. In the same breath he also devotees a lot of space to the historical antagonism between Japan and China, explaining that the millions of Chinese visiting Japan may become more open-minded as a result. The Chinese fear Japan he says, as a super efficient potential military enemy, capable of assembling nuclear weapons in a matter of weeks.Ultimately the attempts by China to rebrand the CCP as a benevolent force for stability, coupled with the reluctance of the Chinese people to leave their comfort zones and demand pluralistic democracy (they also saw what has just happened in Hong Kong to pro-democracy demonstrators), won't convince the West. The decision by the UK to ban Huawei puts a seal on future relations with China - an instant western alliance has been forged, together with powerful regional actors including Japan, and South Korea as well as Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia, that now has Xi in its sights. The unwitting conclusion of Kishore Mahbubani's book the reader is driven to, is that if the Chinese economy is not to suffer, then political reform in China is inevitable. Western trade will increasingly be conducted on due diligence good governance lines and this is not something that sits well with any communist government that prevents freedom of speech and free political expression.(David Willers was a former newspaper editor, former Chairman of the UN International Sugar organisation and Vice Chair of the Business Council for Africa in London. He has a lifelong interest in China, ancient and modern.)

I could not visualize a more qualified personality to write the specific book. The author, an Indian born in Singapore, was imbued since childhood with Hinduism and Confucianism and has intimate familiarity with Asian culture. He had two notable careers, thirty-three years in diplomacy which exposed him to the West and fifteen years in academia. He was the founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and spent over ten years as Singapore's ambassador to the UN.The resulting book is impeccably documented, insightful, incisive in its comments, and an absorbing read.One key message of the book is that while Chinese leaders want to rejuvenate Chinese civilization, they have no missionary impulse to take over the world and make everyone Chinese or convert them to communism. China's role and influence in the world will certainly grow along with the size of its economy. Yet, it will not use its influence to change the ideologies or political practices of other societies.In this regard we have to note that in its 2,000 year history, China has never been an expansionist power. And this is true for the shorter term: of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, China is the only one that has not fought in any foreign wars since World War II while America, Russia, the UK and France have.The United States prides itself as a pillar of Democracy but it is a small minority of financial elites that influences economic policy. The result is an enormous wealth inequality: the average pretax income of the top 10 percent of Americans has doubled since 1980, that of the top 1 has more than tripled, and that of the 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold while the average pretax income of the bottom half of Americans has stagnated.America has convinced itself that China has today become an existential threat.And it is true that there is a fundamental contradiction between America and China in the area of values, especially political values. Americans hold sacrosanct the ideals of freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion and also believe that every human being is entitled to the same fundamental human rights. The Chinese believe that social needs and social harmony are more important than individual needs and rights and that the prevention of chaos and turbulence is the main goal of governance. In summary, America and China clearly believe in two different sets of political values.However, it is not Chinese communism that is a threat to American democracy. It is the success and competitiveness of the Chinese economy and society that is the real challenge. It will be domestic factors, not external threats, that will determine how well America does.The author wisely advises that what the world expects America and China to do is to focus on saving the planet from the real threat of climate change and to improve the living conditions of humanity including those of their own people. The final question will therefore not be whether America or China has won. It will be whether humanity has won.

Now almost halfway through this amazing book. But felt I must submit a review of this truly excellent book. It’s amazingly perceptive. If you didn’t understand what makes China tick before reading this book you will have a far better understanding even after reading a few chapters.For those who wish to see beyond the limits of “The West” viewpoint and in particular that of the USA this is just the book to expand your horizons. It’s not fluff and an attempt to inculcate the reader with the author’s inbuilt prejudices. It is a genuine attempt backed up by both the author’s experience and excellent examples to illustrate his points.It is also a wake up call for America, if anybody’s listening!!I intend to update or add to this review once I have finished reading the book but so far midway through it has more than lived up to expectations.