The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China

by David Eimer

A revelatory and groundbreaking book chronicling the complexity of modern-day China from the perspective of its border regions.

In 1949, Mao Zedong announced the birth of the People’s Republic of China, a proclamation to the world that, after centuries of war and social conflict, China had emerged as one nation. Since then, this idea has been constantly propagated for the benefit of the international community. For many living in the vast country, however, the old Chinese adage holds true: “the mountains are high and the emperor is far away.”

Few Westerners make it far beyond the major cities—the Chinese government has made it difficult to do so. David Eimer undertook a dangerous journey to China’s unexplored frontiers (it borders on fourteen other countries), to the outer reaches where Beijing's power has little influence. His chronicle shines new light on the world’s most populous nation, showing clearly that China remains in many ways a divided state. Traveling through the Islamic areas of Xinjiang province, into the forbidden zone of Tibet and across Route 219, which runs the rough boundary shared with India, the only disputed frontier in China, Eimer exposes the country’s inner conflict. All the tensions in China today—from its war against drugs and terrorism and the unstable relationships it maintains with Russia and Korea to its internal social issues—take on new meaning when seen from China’s most remote corners. A brilliant melding of journalism and history, The Emperor Far Away is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary China.

Genres: China, Travel, Nonfiction, History, Asia, Politics, Geography

336 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2014

Reviews

[Grady · Rating 3 out of 5]

If one were looking for a single book on China's ethnic minorities, it is hard to imagine that this would be the one to pick. Author David Eimer clearly has guts and is an enterprising traveler, working his way around the most remote corners of modern China - Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan, and Dongbei. But while he gets to some remarkable places, at some risk to himself, Eimer doesn't achieve many real insights into the minority cultures, and he consistently seems to have trouble getting folks to open up. There's plenty of historical context, but it's all pretty generic. He's also not particularly reflective - it was illuminating to compare his journey to (and around) Mount Kailash with Colin Thubron's To a Mountain in Tibet, which is much deeper, and better conveys what the mountain means to the pilgrims around it. The most interesting trip Eimer takes is to the heart of the Golden Triangle, where he ends up in a hair-raising methamphetamine session with his drug-lord hosts.

One final thought: all travel authors are, to varying degrees, unreliable narrators; but Eimer makes some choices in telling his story that seem downright odd. For example, at the end of a chapter on Xinjiang, he makes a point to mention his short fling with a Chinese woman working as a location scout for a Chinese television program. It's not offensive, but it is so inconsistent with the arc of his story that one can't help but wonder what Eimer is really doing with this book, and why. That said, there's a lot of raw information in this book about places on the edges of China, and it probably contributes useful context if read along with other accounts.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating travelogue about a journey into places where I don't think I'll ever go. I have been to Hong Kong and Macao and if I return to China, it would probably be to Beijing and Shanghai. Eimer travels in the borderlands of Zhongguo/China, visiting Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan, and Dongbei (the Northeast).He goes where few westerners have gone to try to contact some of the 55 official ethnic minorities in China.
The most hair-raising part of the journey was entering the Golden Triangle, where Myanmar, Laos, and Yunnan ( China) meet. Here drugs are produced and smuggled out and, even worse, women are sold to become wives ( slaves) of Chinese men-a horrific situation I knew nothing about.
I have long been interested in the Mongols, but, for some reason, Eimer did not go to "Inner Mongolia." I wonder why not.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could tell this was a fascinating book even before I finished because of the number of people I told about it. It is a chronicle of a journey around the borders of China, the places where ‘the emperor is always far away’. I learned a lot of fascinating things. China today is much larger than China 100 or 200 or even 300 years ago. Most people know about Tibet, but it’s far from being the only recently acquired land (and people). In many ways it reminds me of the USA in the 1870s. The whites wanted the Indians to become 'civilized', which meant being like the whites. This is China’s policy towards all non-Han groups. (The Han are the ‘typical’ Chinese and the vast majority of the population.) It is also most Hans opinion of the minorities.

Things I learned :
The borders are a lot more porous than I expected, especially for the locals. The exception is Tibet.

There are a lot of non-Han people in China. Most of them live on the edges and are much poorer than the Han.

The boundaries were decided after World War I by the victorious British and French. (They also did the Balkans and the Middle East. Notice a pattern?)

China is succeeding in the far west (Tibet and ‘Uigher-land’) by out-populating the natives.

The reason North Korea is still around is that China wants a buffer state.

China is not succeeding in the southeast, near Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. That area is still controlled by drug lords.

The minorities in the southeast seem to be surviving by camouflage (something many California native tribes did.)

I received this as a Goodreads give-away.

It was difficult to find most of these places on the map, and I have large scale maps of China! Maps will be added which will make it easier, but it helped me realize how huge China is and how remote these places are.

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Revisiting the places that captured your heart when you were young is always unwise. You hope they remain trapped in time and that their magic is still potent. But invariably they have changed, just as you have, leaving you questioning your memories and wondering if they are wishful thinking or merely imagined. (58)

I wish I'd gone into this with more knowledge of China -- I've read very little nonfiction about China, very few novels set there. And here Eimer's focus is those on China's fringes, the people and cultures we don't think about when we consider China. Islamic regions; places near Russia where people are blond-haired and blue-eyed; cultures and subcultures that the Han majority (or at least the government) would like to see the end of because they are different.

It's a timely book in that sense, when you consider that in China right now, some Muslims have been forbidden to fast for Ramadan (another article here), but gosh, it's impossible to capture all that history and conflict and politics in one book. You'd need multiple books for each region and culture; histories; understanding of when they were folded into China and why and how willingly; better information about what life looks like for those in each of China's fringe cultures, and what life looks like in comparison to Han Chinese in the city and in the country.

Eimer has more of that knowledge than I do, certainly; he lives in China (Beijing) now and had traveled through China before. He communicates it well, but I ended with so many questions that I wished I'd read something focusing on one or two non-majority cultures first.

I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The many parts of China that are not Chinese

This book focuses on the minority populations of China that are not Han Chinese. The Uighurs in western China, the vast area of Tibet. the Korean Chinese that live in the northeast across from North Korea and the region in southern China are explored.

[Bandit · Rating 5 out of 5]

The mountains are high and the emperor is far away…goes the Chinese proverb. China is the world’s 4th largest country and the most populous country in the world. We tend to think of it as ethnically and culturally homogenous (mostly because it is how it’s traditionally presented) and it is, to a huge, something like 92%, extent the case. But when you’re talking about such numbers, even 8% of the world’s most populous country is still millions and millions of people. China’s minorities, living in far corners of the country, often along the boundaries (occasionally tentative or unclear) with other countries, constitute millions of people. Some of them are well publicized, like Tibetans, some like Uighurs have been in the news so much recently and some lesser known ones. In fact, that is a huge number of minorities, even official versions of the number are still high. In 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed to the world the birth of China as one united nation, but the nation that’s been assembled together of many, much like an empire. For these people, life is often fraught with serious adversities and the proverbial emperor is indeed far away. And Barry Eimer decided to find out just how far but actually traveling to these remote locations to experience what life is like for those living there. The result is a well rendered somber look at (mostly) third world living conditions in places you might not have heard of and would certainly never set a foot in. Gotta love armchair traveling, always someone ready and willing to boldly go where few or no one has gone before for your enjoinment and edification. But this was more than just a travelogue. Eimer, having actually lived in China, has an understanding of the culture and enough Mandarin to provide genuine insight instead of the pure stunned awe and confusion of some random traveler with yen for exotic destinations. So this is also a pretty thorough journalistic account, offering cultural, political and anthropological context for the places and people you get to read about. Personally, I found it very educational. Few countries are in the news as much as China these days and I wanted to read and learn more about it and this book has actually exceeded my expectations. It was as heavy and bleak and depressing as a reasonable person would expect such a book to be and not an easy read emotionally, but otherwise, especially for a work of nonfiction, it did read easily and engagingly. It ended quite abruptly and I wish it featured photos, but other than that, it was very good. Certainly a memorable trip. Anyone with interest in recent and modern politics and just learning more about the world and its distant corners should be able to enjoy this book. Recommended.

[モーリー · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a lot of other people have remarked, this is a weird book. But I enjoyed it and read it much more quickly than I usually finish anything. It’s more a travelogue and memoir of someone who has an interest in China’s minorities, rather than about them per se. I’m not sure if I’d exactly call it reportage either. Anyway, the narrator is an odd person but he certainly does get himself into interesting situations. His identity as a white western man is partly responsible for what he is even able to do on the borderlands — I, as a white western woman, wouldn’t be invited into the same spaces, and neither would a Chinese person. So he works this identity to the max and gives us some crazy scenes of life on frontiers and borders that I’d never be able to experience myself, and does so with lively and fast-moving prose. Go in with few expectations, bad or good, and see what you make of these stories.

(Edit and aside: to add a link to Chienne de Guerre: A Woman Reporter Behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya which I would say is the woman equivalent of "going in places many readers might not be able to." I said this white man got into situations that most of us who aren't perceived that way cannot get into, and told us about them. It reminds me of Anne Nivat blending in as a woman (even moreso, in Chechnya or similar places, because she visually doesn't stand out as a foreigner until she shows a border guard her passport). For the latter, in war zones, it gives the reader an equally fascinating and unusual insight.)

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Deep South, Paul Theroux is dismissive of travel writers whose books tell their own story rather than the story of the places they visit. He's often guilty of that himself so it's an odd criticism really. It can't be levelled at this book in any way. This isn't just travel writing. It's an intelligent and interesting account of the many ethnic minorities living on China's borders, evading attempts to immerse them in Han culture and remove their identity. These are often small minorities in Chinese terms but huge in Western terms as they often number millions. David Eimer was the Sunday Telegraph correspondent in Beijing from 2007-12. During that time and before, he travelled in every province and has clearly done his research. His journey is simply the framework around which he writes these peoples' stories, their histories and their futures. The only thing the book lacks is photographs but that's what Google is for! Highly recommended.

[két con · Rating 4 out of 5]

Từ Kashgar, Thiên Tân đi đến Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, tìm hiểu người Duy Ngô Nhĩ và khát vọng một đất nước -stan thứ 6 độc lập của riêng mình.
Bắt đầu ở Lí Đường, Tứ Xuyên xuyên thẳng ngọn núi Kailash huyền bí linh thiêng, uống trà bơ yak cùng người Tây Tạng, thăm tu viện phái Bon hiếm hoi còn sót lại sau cách mạng văn hóa
Cảnh Hùng, Tây Song Bản Nạp vùng Vân Nam với những điệu múa, gái đẹp, đủ thứ họ khác nhau của người Thái, chằng chịt như sông Mekong đi vào Tam Giác Vàng khét tiếng cung cấp thuốc phiện, heroin cho toàn thế giới
một thành phố Hàn Quốc thứ 3 ở Cát Lâm, ông già noel đến từ ngoại ô Cáp Nhĩ Tân..

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Emperor Far Away takes readers on a journey along China’s outer rim, beginning in the western steppes where the ‘Chinese’ are a minority, and following it south to the Tibetan plateau, the jungles of the Golden Triangle, up to the Korean border, and ending in the far north, where the snow only melts for three months of the year. Eimer’s travels would be fascinating in themselves, given the variety of landscapes and people encountered, but also shed light on the Chinese state’s interactions with its neighbors and internal ‘others’.

The people’s republic of China, like the supposedly vanished empire whose borders it revived, counts a multitude of peoples as its subjects. The Chinese state recognizes at least 56 ‘minorities’ within its borders. The Uighur people of Xinjiang, a larger group, are more Turkic than ‘Asian’, and hold fast to their own traditions -- particularly Islam. This annoys the Party to no end, and not only because it disdains religion. The unity of the Chinese state and its people -- unity controlled by the party -- is a fundamental doctrine of the government. Separatism is heresy, and since religion’s importance in creating cultural identities is rivaled only by language it remains anathema. Despite this, even its own people drift into religion: in the section on Tibet, we meet Chinese tourists who are searching for something in the Buddhist temples, and those near the Korean border are embracing exuberant evangelical sects like Pentecostalism.

The golden triangle is another area of interest. for here there exists narco-states that ignore national boundaries and impose their own authority on their subjects. These are not necessarily dangerous places, provided one is vouched for. The streets are patrolled by fifteen year olds with Kalushnikovs, and the economy largely consists of growing, processing, and shipping opioids -- including little red pills that are not swallowed, but exposed to flames and the smoke inhaled. China’s southern border encompasses both ‘model minorities’ and unyielding nomads, the latter of whom are most common in Tibet, where they have traded camels for motorbikes. Unlike Xinjiang and Tibet, the people in the golden triangle region are free from the fear that their culture will one day vanish: the Han are not settling en masse here as they are elsewhere.

Further north, near the border with Korea, readers encounter the ‘third’ Korea. The Yanbian prefecture of of China sits along the North Korean border, and nearly half of its population is ethnically Korean. Some are refugees from North Korea, others have drifted there more naturally -- and like American immigrants, many straddle two identities and refer to themselves as Chinese Koreans. The region is strongly influenced by South Korean culture, and particularly its abundance of churches. Because of the fusion of North Korean refugees and South Korean culture, Eimer believes Yanbian is an image of what a unified Korea might look like. Even further north Chinese culture mixes with Russian, instead, resulting in blonde-haired blue-eyed people with Chinese names.

If Emperor Far Away is anything, it is varied. Eimer takes us across steppes, up mountains, down rivers, into the jungle, and finally into areas so cold that the snow is only absent in the high summer. Eimer’s interest in meeting people off the beaten track makes for interesting reading as he uses his Mandarin, a few contacts, and the curiosity of people to make travel arrangements on the fly. Sometimes this meant breaking down in the middle of nowhere, bypassing border checkpoints, and hitching rides on cargo ships. Those interested in China’s place on the world stage will no doubt be interested in sections like the one on North Korea, where it is revealed the Chinese government treats North Korea like one of its autonomous prefectures: it doesn’t respect the Kims as leaders of a neighboring nation so much as it regards them as a necessarily evil. Better to manage the Kims and keep their economy from dying completely than to see the place collapse and all those starving Kim captives flood China. The chapter on the Chinese-Russian border is a reminder of how the Chinese are haunted by the Soviet Union’s sudden collapse, one of the reasons the Party is so ruthless about political dissent.

Emperor Far Away will easily rank as one of my more memorable and helpful reads this year.

[Beth Diesch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eimer's self-referential autobiographical text takes the reader around the furthest borders of China, beginning in the Xinjiang Province and neighboring middle-eastern countries, continuing through Tibet and the Golden Triangle, touching briefly on the space between Beijing and DPRK and finishing in far northern Manchuria and Russia. Eimer has travelled to many of these regions in previous decades and so has an insight to share how the government in Beijing has begun paying greater attention to these regions in recent history. Eimer respectfully describes his experiences with the minority groups in these regions and the oppressive histories that each of them have experienced throughout the turbulent 20th century.

Eimer describes many of the groups he meets as Machiavellian in their attempts to hide or disguise the most important parts of their cultures to prevent destruction or forced assimilation. He is careful to report what he experiences in these areas in a manner both respectful and appreciative for the ongoing efforts these communities must make for preservation.

I appreciated his list of suggested readings in the back of the book as well. As thoroughly as he attempted to describe socio-historic perspectives for each of the regions and micro-communities he visited it is impossible to delve fully into each of them. His recommended readings allow the reader to continue investigating some of the intriguing cultures he is only able to touch on rather than explore.

I was able to read this book courtesy of the New York Public Library. nypl.org.

[Anu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really, really wanted to like this. When I picked this book, I was quite excited because Chinese minorities are rarely heard about, unless of course there are Uighur or Tibetan protests. But the book was disappointing in such that it seemed like just a list of all the minorities that live in China, the geographical description of places they live in and how they do not like to talk honestly to foreigners about the government. Now most people know the last part and for the first two, I could have picked up any well sourced, well illustrated atlas. I finished the book because I had started it but it took a lot of determination

[Kayla Tornello · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a glimpse of China that is usually hidden away. The border lands and ethnic minorities in China are rarely visited by westerners. This book gives a brief history of the different border areas that the author explores. I was amazed by the differences in climate and culture.

This is a well-researched book and is more serious in tone than a typical travel memoir. You will learn a lot of new facts.

I received this book as a Goodreads First-Read. Yay!

[Ashley Humphrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. I was especially mesmerized by the parts about Tibet and the Dongbei Province.

Read the review I wrote for work here-- http://www.longitudebooks.com/blog/in...

[can y · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think while writing a review for this book, one must first keep in mind the purpose of the book. This is not supposed to be a sociological study, in fact it doesn't make any claims to scientificity. It is meant to be as a travel book, and it is pretty good at what it claims to be.

This book, without giving away too much, is about the minorities of China, but while investigating this rather broad topic which at first sight might seem very specific, the book investigates nearly all regions of "Asia". Since "Asia" as a continent is merely a politically correct way of referring to what was once referred to as the "Orient", this book serves a great introduction to the Orient. Through the section on the Uyghurs one is exposed to the region and cultures of Central Asia (and to a certain extent, the Middle East), through the section on Tibet, one is exposed to the culture of the Indian subcontinent, through the section on Yunnan, one is exposed to Southeast Asia and through the section on Dongbei, one is exposed to East Asian affairs. In short, this is a very readable account of a seasoned traveller's journey to the edges of China, and I would recommend it to people who are curious about and seek an introduction to China and Asia.

[Shariq Chishti · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Mountains are high and the Emperor is far away" - Chinese Proverb

Hans constitute more than 90% of the world`s most populated country and hence its easy to forget the numerous ethnic minorities (55 recognized by the government) living in China mostly on the edges of the country along often contentious and porous borders. Most of the times these minorities have a substantial interaction (both financial and cultural) with their brothers across the border.

The relationships between the Hans and these ethnic minorities vary from healthy & cordial to hostile & cold depending on how subservient these minorities are to the Hans.

This book is about the travel of author through the homelands of these minorities on the edge of China. The landscape is usually harsh & extreme but the Hans are making inroads and sometimes dominating the education & job market and thus leaving these minorities on the fringes in their own homeland.

The author is an enterprising traveler and writes succinctly even though the book had potential to be more than what it ended up being. Still its an extremely enjoyable book.

[Alvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The multitudinous ethnic minorities living in China's geographic periphery make for a fascinating topic. With the exception of the Tibetans, these peoples are seldom reported on here in the west and this book offers a good introductory overview of their customs and socio-political realities. Alas, the book contains two major drawbacks. First, this is a subject that calls out for a LOT of pictures, and it doesn't have them. Second, the getting-from-here-to-there parts of Eimer's travelogue become increasingly tedious as they're written in workmanlike prose that left me yearning for a bit of verbal sparkle.

[Erwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half on Tibet and Xinjiang wasn't very original... The second half covering Yunnan/the golden triangle/Shan state and Dongbei/Russia/North Korea were very interesting!

[Thomas Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learnt something new on nearly every page. Love his style with just the right amount of autobiography.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is about the lives and geography of the ethnic minority’s of China. The book has a feel of a textbook combined with a travelogue.

It was not an easy read to start, but it eventually flowed. If China interests you, you should consider reading this book.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking for an academic work, move along. This falls somewhere between travel literature and light anthropology, in my view. The author is getting along in years, but he's an intrepid tourist and a keen observer. He's also amusing, no stranger to mind-altering substances - at one point, he smokes copious quantities of cheap methamphetamines with a Wa warlord - and a bit of a ladies' man.

The book opens in Xinjiang, home of the Uighurs. The relationship between the Han and the Uighurs is a tense one, and it makes for an interesting introduction to life as a minority both in China and in one's native land. In the following chapters, Eimer treks through Sichuan, Tibet, Yunnan, Laos, Myanmar, Jilin, and Heilongjiang. He visits the Golden Triangle, climbs a mountain in Tibet, tries to chat up North Koreans on a train, drinks beer with the "Janus-like" Dai people, and visits a northern market town swarming with Russians adapting to a world where China is the Big Dog in the far East.

An easy read, and perhaps a bit lighter on history than I would've liked, but recommended. I found the chapters on the north to be the most engaging, despite their lack of heft compared to the space devoted to the west and south.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as part of GoodReads First Reads program.

This interesting travel memoir recounts the experiences of a writer making his way across China, border-to-border. He relates his opinions of the various locations and people that he meets along the way. Each chapter is about a different region, and he gives a brief cultural history of the area he is visiting.

While some reviewers may have an issue with how he portrays his experiences, I always kept in mind that as a travelougue, this book represents the personal experiences of the writer. I never expected this book to have the impartial point of view of a travel guide, so I found his humorous and candid retellings of his travels to be refreshing and amusing.

I found this book to be a very interesting, informative, and engrossing read. Eimer is honest about all he encounters, good and bad. Since many who both travel to and live in some of the areas he visits could face repercussions for their interactions with him, I appreciated his honesty even more. He paints a very complex picture of a country struggling to merge many different cultural identities into a single, unified, national one.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The mountains are high and the emperor far away." (frontpiece, Chinese proverb)

"'We say China is a country vast in territory, rich in resources, and large in population; as a matter of fact it is the Han nationality whose population is large and the minority nationalities whose territory is vast and whose resources are rich...'" (quoting Mao, 11)

"In the parlance of the time [Qing dynasty], the barbarian minorities were either shufan, cooked and therefore tame, or shengfan, raw and savage." (19)

"The fact that it [North Korea] is frozen in time, a throwback to the China of the Mao era, makes a trip to the DPRK a nostalgic experience, as well as enabling the Chinese to crow over how their country has changed for the better." (244)

"Pyongyang was the heartland of Korean Protestantism. The many missionaries who came to the north of the still undivided Korea in the late nineteenth century met with such success that in 1907 Pyongyang was dubbed the 'Jerusalem of the East.'" (269)

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to a wide variety of the various ethnic minorities (as according to the Beijing government) of China. Eimer spends his time traveling through four ethnic borderland areas of modern China, Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan and Dongbe; visiting the homes and institutions of the non-Han people. During these travels we hear directly from people who self-identify as Uighurs, Xibe, Khampa Nomads, Amdo , Dai, Wa, Chinese-Korean, and many others. The relations between the Beijing government and the majority-Han Chinese and the minority peoples swing from outright animosity and suppression most evident in the treatment of the Uighurs and the Tibetans to a more benevolent co-opting of others such as the Chinese-Koreans. Fascinating look at cultures we're unlikely to hear much about on the evening news.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm ashamed to say I knew very little about the 21st century superpower, other than where it interacted with the 19th century superpower, so I found this book both fascinating and surprising. The book is excellent in describing the relationship between the Han and the various types of "barbarians" around China's borders, and in describing the history and politics of those relationships. The author has a great eye for detail, meeting people and immersing himself in whatever questionable local customs seem appropriate! The chapters on Yunnan and, among others, the Wa minority are particularly eye-opening. My only quibble is that the travel and travel disaster sections can be a little repetitive. All in all, though, well worth the read.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up wanting to learn more about the situation of the Uighars in China, which I did. It also covers the author's travels in Tibet, southern China near the Golden Triangle, by North Korea, and by Russia on the Amur river. Interesting to get a look around in these places, but the more I read the less I enjoyed the company of the author, which is not a good sign in travel books.

[US]

Now that I'm done inhaling this book, I need to go back and re-read it slowly. Five stars for the journey behind the tale, two for the telling. Five for how this book is a great starting point for further reading.

[Gemma · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just awful. Another clueless white middle class man who doesn't seem to have a clue and shouldn't have been commissioned to write a book. There are multiple other books about minorities in China, I suggest you read one of them instead.

[Rob Hocking · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting subject matter. The author is a good writer, but not a great one.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

For all the politicking and fearmongering about China's status in the world--its massive military, volatile relationship with neighboring countries, gluttonous economy, and adept but secretive intelligence agencies--one constantly overlooked fact is that no nation, not even one as rapidly modernized as China, can survive as such without radical change. China is, for lack of a better metaphor, an army marching blindly towards the very same precipice that has claimed so many empires of centuries past. Its population continues to increase at an unprecedented rate, despite its infamous one-child policy, which puts further demand on an already strained agricultural system. It also dammed an entire river--a project so massive it actually altered the rotation of the Earth--to support an infrastructure that is still famished for resources, increased the censorship needed to keep more than a billion people uninformed and oppressed, and pushed its companies into exploring and exploiting the natural resources of neighboring nations, often at the risk of armed conflict. What's more, its one-child policy has created a society in which gender-based abortions and the forfeiture of young girls means there are far more men than women, leading to a massive child-abduction industry along the southern borders. Its need to suppress anything or anyone considered subversive or treacherous--public protests, religion, independent journalism, depictions of anti-government heroes--has led China to incarcerate more than 1.5 million of its own citizens. And lax government oversight, along with corruption and weak regulations, has resulted in unprecedented levels of pollution, endangering millions of people. In 2010, air pollution alone led to over one million premature deaths in China, which was "nearly 40 percent of the global total," according to the New York Times.

And while all of this happens, the country's government--three large but feckless branches that provide the ruling Communist Party with the facade of a democracy--refuse to unsettle themselves from positions that are imbued with power and money while remaining almost entirely devoid of any responsibility or accountability. They are the matadors preening to one another in their lush costumes, all unaware that the bull-calf they have so long ignored has grown into something almost uncontrollable. And "control" is what defines the relationship between China's government and its people--controlling every aspect of their lives, which is easy to accomplish when the population of your country is a few hundred million, less so when that population climbs over one billion without any hint of slowing. Even the fact that the country's ethnic majority, the Han, make up over 90% of the population of China and almost the entire Communist Party of China, is of little consequence: after all, when food is scarce, pollution poisons those close to you, or the various public-service grids become unstable, ethnic allegiances become meaningless.

Nowhere is this more nakedly apparent than in China's treatment of its millions of ethnic minorities, who comprise just under 10% of the country's overall population. Forced to register with the Communist Party and gain government approval--a minority must have over 5,000 people to be eligible, and often the government lumps unlike minorities together--these groups are spread unevenly along the outer borders of China. Some are located there because that is where their ancestors settled, and only now, in the last fifty years or so, has China begun to challenge their centuries-long hold on the land, often to fulfill its goals of suppression and exploitation. Others inhabit these largely uninhabitable regions because of ever-uncertain borders between China and its neighbors; as a result, there are millions of Chinese citizens who identify more readily with their Indian, Laotian, Russian, Kazakhstani, Nepalese, Bhutanese, Pakistani, Kyrgyzstani, Thai, and Burmese neighbors, to the point where vast amounts of China could easily secede or be absorbed by other countries with little apparent change. Its this other-ness, along with constant political and religious resistance and vast tracts of untapped resources, that has drawn the government's attention, transforming much of China's vast landscape into a metaphoric tinder-box waiting to erupt.

It's very easy for those of us in the West, and particularly those of us in the United States, to look at China with a mixture of bemusement and condemnation: protesting their human rights abuses while also looking down on aspects of their society we consider primitive. This attitude towards China allows us to ignore them rather than understand them, and by substituting facts with televised talking points we are admitting that China is not a primary concern while, paradoxically, those same talking points portray China as an unavoidable threat to our well-being. When we examine China more closely, however, we begin to notice another unavoidable fact about the world's newest superpower: it resembles the United States in so many ways that it's downright uncomfortable. As David Eimer writes about the oppressed minorities and distant lands of China, he does so with an awareness that China of the early 21st century is eerily similar to the United States--and much of the industrialized world--from the early 20th century. We read of China's subjugation of its many minority groups--taking their land, removing their ability to worship their own religion openly, carving away revered landscapes in search of tradable products, imprisoning them unfairly and without due process--and shake our heads, even though it reads like a description of how the United States treated its own ethnic minorities, especially Native Americans and African Americans, and in some ways still continues to do. We read of China's unconscionable destruction of nature while ignoring the fact that our own country allows companies and industries to cut the tops off mountains, dump toxic sludge into rivers and oceans without so much as a criminal trial, and blast tons of pressurized liquid into the ground beneath our feet, resulting in flammable drinking water and hundreds of small earthquakes. We condemn their treatment of workers stuck in an imbalanced economy, even though we use the very products that those workers make without a second thought, and our own economy is demonstrating the widest wealth gap in the nation's history, where full-time jobs are no longer enough to keep a middle-class family out of poverty.

China has made no secret of the fact that it wants what the United States has: a status in the world as a military, economic, and political superpower. Their students attend American universities, become involved in American businesses, and study our country's economy with more scrutiny than most Americans themselves. What the United States accomplished in one hundred years has been done in almost half that time by the people and government of China. And yet, in following the examples of the United States--which China so clearly and unabashedly has--its government has chosen to ignore perhaps the most significant moments: those concerned with social change. Because America's economy, military, and politics are so inextricably tied to the well-being of its people, a shift in one (or more) of the former means an inevitable shift in the latter, and vice versa. The 1950s--burgeoning economy, expanded transportation, the growth of the middle class--also saw the Civil Rights movement become stronger than it had ever been, and by the next decade the Civil Rights Act had been signed into law. Even earlier, in the 1900s and 1910s, the industrialization of the previous decades--as well as the sudden and expansive gap between rich and poor--saw the rise of Progressive politics, muckraker journalism, and Teddy Roosevelt, who also ushered in the American government's embrace of conservation; within only a few years, women had been granted the right to vote, and America's entry into World War I marked it as a world power to be reckoned with.

The government of China can blindly ignore the lessons of the United States in favor of seeing only the history it wants for itself, but in doing so, it risks following the history any nation--and its people--wants for itself: one in which justice and equality become a goal that gets ever closer, the disparity between rich and poor--the us and the other--is forever being bridged, and the people take more and more power for themselves from a functionless and corrupt government. The United States is far from perfect, and we still have quite the distance to travel before we can truly act superior towards other nations, but our history tells us all we need to know about where we've come from and where we're going. China's government, unfortunately for them, does not understand that history is not a buffet, and the events on its timeline cannot be picked over others. Instead, change is inevitable, whether you want it to or not, and it is unforgiving to those who think otherwise.


This review was originally published at There Will Be Books Galore.