Edward Friedman

DEBATING HUMAN RIGHTS: Critical essays from the United States and Asia

Acknowledgements. Contributors. Introduction. Issues in Dispute From Human Rights to Human Dignity Chandra Muzzaffar. The Human Rights Debate in a era of Globalization: Hegemony of Discourse. Nikhil Aziz. Asia as a Fount of Universal Human Rights Edward Friedman. An Asia Perspective on Human Rights and Freedom of the Press Kishore Mahbubani. Humnan Rights in Greater China. East Meets West: Human Rights in Hong Kong Linda Butenhoff. Developmentalism and Chinas Human Rights Policy Michael J. Sullivan. Human Rights as Identities: Difference and Discrimination in Taiwans China Policy Shih Chihyu. Womens Rights. Reinventing International Law: Womens Rights as Human Rights in the International Community Radhika Coomaraswamy. From Vienna ti Beijing: Womens Human Rights Activism ans the Human Rights Community Manisha Desai. Human Rights and INternational Relations Human Rights and Developmnent Aid: Japan after the ODA Charter. Hoshino Eiichi. Human Rights Problems and Current Sino-American Relations Zhu Feng. From Judge to Participant: The United Sates as Champion of Human Rights Daniel Wessner. Conclusion.

Asia's Giants: Comparing China and India

Preface E.Friedman Introduction R.MacFarquhar Two Paths to Modernity B.Gilley ECONOMIC REFORMS Differential Development: Beyond Regime Dichotomies J.Mukherji Chasing China: Can India Bridge the Gap? S.Awamy Indias Reform Strengths J.Manor & G.Segal SUB-NATIONAL FACTORS The Persistence of Informal Finance K.Tsai The Political Basis of Decentralization A.Sinha Indigenous vs. Foreign Business Models H.Yasheng & T.Khanna NEW PERSPECTIVES Why Democracy Matters E.Friedman China Rethinks India H.Jinxin Development and Choice A.Saich Conclusion B.Gilley

Damming the Three Gorges : What the Dam Builders Don't Want You to Know

Recently, the Chinese government has decided, with a minimum of fanfare, to press ahead with one of the largest hydroelectric project ever built - a dam across the Yangtze river at the Three Gorges. The dam aims to generate 17,500 MW of electricity, will displace over 1 million people, and will create a lake over 450 miles long. This is a full and independent critique of the project. Using the Canadian Freedom of Information Act, the authors were able to obtain access to the feasibility studies by Western engineering consultants. They show how far short of an acceptable standard the advice given to the Chinese government was - in one instance, 500,000 people were deliberately left out of the account to minimize the apparent impact of the dam. So grave were the failings that charges of professional misconduct have subsequently been laid. The book presents all information in a non-technical manner.

Chinese nationalism, Taiwan autonomy and the prospects of a larger war

In contrast to the belief that the 1995–1996 Taiwan Straits crisis was caused by the visit of the President of Taiwan to Cornell University, in fact, the post‐Mao ruling groups in Beijing made forcing early reunification with mainland China on Taiwan a top priority soon after assuming power in 1978. This new focus on Taiwans reunification reflects a policy switch. It is not a continuation of Mao era policies. The switch is basic. It involves a profound change in the content of Chinese nationalism from Mao era nationalism, which is seen by its critics in China as insufficiently promoting the national interests of the Chinese people. The new, post‐Mao nationalism in China not only challenges Taiwans autonomy, it also could endanger peace in the Pacific‐Asia region. Consequently, it is important to rethink the political dynamics at work in China and in the region if the parties involved hope to avoid a larger war.

Maoism and the Liberation of the Poor

Jan Myrdal, Return to a Chinese Village. New York: Pantheon, i984, 153 pp. Fei Hsiao Tung (Fei Xiaotong), Chinese Village Close-up. Beijing: New World Press, i983, 269 pp. Steven Mosher,Journey to Forbidden China. New York: Free Press, i985, i8o pp. Steven Mosher, Broken Earth. New York: Free Press, i983, 317 pp. M. Steifel and W. F. Wertheim, Production, Equality and Participation in Rural China. London: Zed Press, i983, 172 pp. Keith Griffen and Ashwani Saith, Growth and Equality in Rural China. Singapore: Maruzen Asie Pte. Ltd., i98i, i65 pp. Anita Chan, Richard Madsen, and Jonathan Unger, Chen Village. Berkeley: University of California Press, i984, 293 pp. William Hinton, Shenfan. New York: Random House, i983, 785 pp.

A Comparative Politics of Democratization in China

Agreeing with Professor Pan Wei that maintaining stability in China and preventing war between China and the United States are at least as important as the democratization of China, this article considers the experiences of Russia, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong for clues as to whether China can control corruption and continue the economic reform process without significant political reform, concluding that gradual democratization is the best way to maintain stability, prevent war, check corruption and promote further economic reform.

Why Democracy Matters

From a global perspective, reform in both China and India is a success in terms of poverty alleviation, a most important dimension of regime performance. Poverty was reduced by one-third in India in the first decade or so of reform. The World Bank found that “China, along with India, was also responsible for the fall in the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty—from just over 40 percent in 1981 [when the socialist command economy was just beginning to be rejected by China’s rulers] to just over 20 percent by 2001” (Balls 2004). Economic reform pays off, even for the poor. Raising the question of how India and China have been able “to take advantage of globalization…” (Fukuyama 2004), both seemed successes. “China is going places, but so is India” (Pesek 2003).

Revolution or Just Another Bloody Cycle?: Swatow and the 1911 Revolution

The 1911 Revolution in China is usually considered a failure. Changing the perspective of judgement from the national level to the local level permits a reassessment. Enough information is available from Chinese memoirs, contemporary newspapers, and foreign consular reports to make the new judgement somewhat secure if attention is focused on one particular location—Swatow. The old administration was overthrown by expeasants led by deracinated rural intellectuals. They took power in the name of modern merchants. These merchants easily pushed the young radicals out because the ideology of the radical prevented them from using force against the wealth and status of the merchants. Rural disorder of the ex-peasants and republican election victorier for the radicals forced the urban merchants to rely on foreign election victories for the radicals forced the urban merchants to rely on foreign wealth and rural power to maintain law and order needed for trade and to maintain their own urban power base. Armed peasants and the young radicals were suppressed or bought off. Power fell to rural warlords and other political allies in urban enclaves. Only a rejoining of radical intellectuals and ex-peasants could offer China a revolution instead of just another bloody cycle.

Wounding the Chinese Nation: some consequences of Mao Zedong's quest for glory

Niu Jun, a professor of International Relations at Peking University who specializes in Chinese foreign-policy making from the Yan’an era through to the end of the Mao era, has assembled seven articles by Chinese analysts on ‘The Cold War and China’s External Relations’ as a special issue (summer 2003) of Social Sciences in China which are Mao-centered in a way that somewhat resembles the work of Frederick Teiwes or Chen Jian. This scholarship has little relation to Party line historiography in which China is merely an innocent victim of imperialist evil. Here China is a major global actor, a conscious and active agent helping to shape its own destiny. The overarching hypothesis of the seven articles is that Mao’s changing preoccupations were decisive for Cold War alliances and self-wounding for China. Mao was willing to accept subordination to the Soviet Union under Stalin because Mao lacked confidence about building socialism when his Red Armies suddenly and unexpectedly conquered power in the aftermath of the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan and because Mao worried about an American attack on China, in which case it would be better to be allied with the USSR than to stand alone in an armed confrontation with the USA. When Stalin died in 1953, however, Mao, now confident and secure, would not subordinate China to Khrushchev’s Soviet Union, no matter how much better Khrushchev treated China. Believing that Mao’s experience qualified him alone to lead a socialist camp, Mao insisted on Moscow accepting Mao’s unique wisdom, as in his 1956 advice on how to handle democratic challenges in Poland and Hungary. With Khrushchev incapable of such subordination, Mao in 1958 created a crisis in the Taiwan Straits with America and a crisis over naval cooperation with the USSR that unnecessarily lost China the benefits of an alliance with the Soviet Union. Mao’s dogmatism and megalomania were a disaster for China, making China unnecessary enemies.

Building New Vital Mutual Interests for a Better Future: a commentary on Wang Jisi and Kenneth Lieberthal's Addressing US–China Strategic Distrust

This analysis of the dangerous forces increasingly dynamizing Beijing–Washington relations explains why the usual proposals for increasing the cooperative aspects of USA–PRC relations will not succeed. It builds on the policy analysis and policy proposals of others who understand what a disaster it would be if China–America relations were to continue to grow worse. It makes a suggestion for restructuring the institutions of the international political economy so as to construct fundamental over-lapping interests between America and China. The author finds that without some difficult and basic changes in the relations, worst case outcomes become ever more probable.