The China Wave
Rise of a Civilizational State
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- € 22,99
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- € 22,99
Beschrijving uitgever
This is a best-seller in China and a geopolitical book for our times. As a leading thinker from China, Zhang Weiwei provides an original, comprehensive and engrossing study on the rise of China and its effective yet controversial model of development, and the book has become a centerpiece of an unfolding debate within China on the nature and future of the world's most populous nation and its possible global impact. China's rise, according to Zhang, is not the rise of an ordinary country, but the rise of a different type of country, a country sui generis, a civilizational state, a new model of development and a new political discourse which indeed questions many of the Western assumptions about democracy, good governance and human rights. The book is as analytical as it is provocative, and should be required reading for everyone concerned with the rise of China and its global implications.
Contents:Not Misreading Oneself:A Fast-Changing WorldThe Unusual AscentSurpassing JapanThe GDP ParadoxTo the TopChina's 1+1 > 2:The “Quasi-Developed Countries” within ChinaThe Size of China's Middle ClassThe “Emerging Economies” within ChinaWhy China's 1 + 1 > 2?The Rise of a Civilizational State:China's Rocky Path towards a Nation-StateThe Rise of a Civilizational StateA New PerspectiveLooking at China AfreshThe Rise of a Development Model:Reflections after the CrisesThe China Model May Win OutShaping the Chinese StandardsThe Rise of a New Political Discourse:Political Reform, the Chinese WayDebating Human RightsThe Rise of a New Political DiscourseThe End of the End of History:The Western Model: from India to Eastern EuropeThe Western Model: East Asia and BeyondDebating with Fukuyama: The End of the End of History
Readership: Researchers, policy-makers, general readers interested in the rise of China, its model of development and its global impact.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this slim and compelling treatise (the original of which topped the 2011 Shanghai Bookfair's List of the "most influential new books in China"), Weiwei, a professor of international relations at Fudan University and former interpreter for the late Communist leader Deng Xiaoping, presents his case for how the Chinese economic model is poised to surpass its Western counterparts. Crediting Xiaoping with being "the visionary architect of rise," Weiwei maintains that rather than a nation-state (such as those of Europe), China is "a country sui generis, a civilizational state, a new model which questions many of the Western assumptions about democracy, good governance and human rights." He points out that nation-states tend to allocate resources to military endeavors (as evidenced by the U.S.'s deployment of troops in the Middle East), whereas a civilizational state takes a philosophical approach to development that combines ancient roots with a modern sensibility, focusing instead on infrastructure improvement. If China should choose to adopt the Western model, he warns, it will soon follow the same downward spiral as the Soviet Union. The author admits that his work is as much a wake-up call to the West as it is to China, and this evenhanded and expertly translated exposition is worth heeding.
