On Equal Terms: Redefining China's Relationship with America and the West

by Mingxun Zheng, Thomas S. Robertson (Foreword)

An insightful look at the future of China's relations with the West and the United States For anyone who wants to better understand China and its economic and political relations to the West, On Equal Terms offers front-row insight. Exploring China's state-capitalist economic model and the unique qualities and ideals of Chinese culture that can make difficult for Westerners to understand its approach to business interactions, the book looks to the future, explaining how China and the United States can cooperate to solve some of the world's major problems. Covering the extraordinary changes taking place in China and China's relationship with America and the West over ten powerful chapters, the book looks at China's state-capitalist model of governance, how history affects her behavior in foreign policy, how China is emerging as an economic world power, that products are not made but assembled in China, that China is not one big market but many markets, and much more. China and America need to cooperate in order to solve the major problems of the world, and On Equal Terms gives readers the information they need to improve their business and professional relationships in China.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Hansen Lillemark · Rating 3 out of 5]

An overview of Chinese-American relations, circa 2011, as China continued to achieve record GDP growth and at the time showed no time of slowing. The US is still recovering from Great Recession, while China has come through it without much difficulty. Overall, the book has some solid historical background and principles that should still hold today, and I believe does a decent job of convincing an American reader to take a more holistic approach when attempting to understand Chinese politics or business.

In terms of its depth, it reads more like an extended news article and lacks critical analysis, especially when given the opportunity to present something that could be seen as shining negative light on China. I understand this may be a product of the times, given the optimism of the continuation of China's economic miracle, the relative fall of the West due to the Great Recession, and the depiction of China as a new 'Enemy of the West' that the author wished to respond to. This lack of a multi-sided analysis causes many of the contemporary claims of the book to have not held up, notably the supposed lack of the old Mao-style strongman party rule in China (seen by rise of Xi Jinping). This is in addition to countless other examples where information about the party's intentions (e.g. the party will never be interested in being a world hegemon state) are taken at face value in the book, lacking any analysis. I would have appreciated a discussion about the realist and political reasons America acts hypocritically on the global stage with regard to Liberal ideals (which the author happily takes stabs at), and what China's intentions and actions would be if they were to become equals with the US economically, for instance. Some points that cannot be avoided like the freedom of information and speech are brushed aside as just cultural differences that are inherent to the Chinese system. There is some acknowledgement of the real reason for this existing (the Party needs to remain in control and they are terrified of dissent), but I believe a truly neutral party writing this book would be critical of both sides in the ways that are justified, while still remaining optimistic about the cooperation between the countries.

Overall an enjoyable and relatively quick read, and there are some quite interesting personal anecdotes that help put events into perspective.