Warren I. Cohen

China's rise in Historical Perspective

Abstract China today is the product of thousands of years of expansion. Much like the Russian and American empires, the Chinese Empire resulted from the ruthless extension of power from a relatively small core over a vast territory. The original inhabitants of those lands were driven away, killed, or assimilated. For much of its history, China dominated East Asia and controlled its contacts with the rest of the world. In the nineteenth century, however, the rise of European power challenged China and, for a relatively brief period – perhaps 100 years – Europeans and subsequently Japanese were able to impose their will on the Chinese people. Beginning with the establishment of the Peoples Republic in 1949, China has reasserted itself as a force in world affairs. Its government united the people and gained control over most of the territory the Han and Qing empires had acquired. As China regains its great power status, it can be expected to behave as all great empires have throughout history, resume its place as East Asias hegemonic power and extend its influence wherever it can in the rest of the world.

Economic Cold War: America's Embargo against China and the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1949 1963. By Shu Guang Zhang. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, and Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. Pp. xvi, 375.

Shu Guang Zhang is a leader among those revealing Chinese perspectives on international affairs, as found in both Chinese-language publications and in hitherto unused archival materials. He and several other China-born scholars working in the United States—most notably Jian Chen, Qiang Zhai, Simei Qing, and Xiaoyuan Liu—have performed an enormous service to analysts all over the world by uncovering, translating, and incorporating into their work these vital documents. For this book Zhang has also used American, British, and Soviet sources, but to less striking effect.

49.50

WALTER LAFEBER. The Clash: US-Japan Relations throughout History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. Pp. xxii, 508.

Review Article: A Friendship Imperilled? The United States and Japan

29.95 (US); PATRICK SMITH. Japan: A Reinterpretation. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997. Pp. 385.

The Henry Luce Foundation and the Study of American-East Asian Relations

27.50 (US); MICHAEL SCHALLER. Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. 320.

Art Collecting as International Relations: Chinese Art and American Culture

44.50 (CDN); STEPHEN D. COHEN. An Ocean Apart: Explaining Three Decades of US-Japanese Trade Frictions. Westport: Praeger, 1998. Pp. xi, 256.

The History of American-East Asian Relations: Cutting Edge of the Historical Profession

65.00 (US). Reviewed by Warren I. Cohen

Symposium: Rethinking the lost Chance in China. Introduction: Was There a ”Lost Chance“ in China?

aid. Although the joint efforts of Dorothy Borg, John Fairbank, and Ernest May had provided strong roots for the American-East Asian hybrid, there were no funded centers and scholars in the field were dependent primarily on the largesse of Columbia and Harvard. Inevi tably support went to scholars with connections to those two institu tions, both of which were perceived as elitist in the 1970s, the final hours of American egalitarianism. Fortunately for the field, the Henry Luce Foundation stepped for ward in 1976 and in the next decade offered critical funding. Al though the foundation targeted leading institutions, providing grants on an invitational basis only, it urged applicants to develop proposals involving scholars from neighboring institutions. In practice that meant that someone like me, with a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, teaching at Michigan State University, might benefit from grants to the University of Michigan, Columbia, or the Univer sity of Chicago. Indeed, much of my research in the late 1970s and early 1980s was supported by Luce grants to Columbia and Chicago.

Ambassador Philip D. Sprouse on the Question of Recognition of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and 1950

In the course of the nineteenth century, a few Americans recognized the maturity and quality of Chinese and Japanese art and individual Americans and museums began collecting it. The collecting of East Asian art affected American perceptions of China and Japan, Ameri can taste, American conceptions of art, and American culture. Admi ration for Asian art, specifically Japanese art, was of political signifi cance as well. And, across the Pacific, the American response to Asian art had consequences for Chinese and Japanese culture as well. In short, art collecting proved to be a significant form of intercultural relations, an important component of international history.