Harry Harding - Böcker

As we move further into a new century, the two most populous nations on earth, China and India, continue a long and tangled relationship. Given their contested border, their nuclear rivalry, their competition for influence in Asia, their growing economic relations, and their internal problems, interaction between these two powers will deeply affect not only stability and prosperity in the region, but also vital U.S. interests. Yet the dynamics of the Chinese-Indian relationship are little known to Americans. This volume brings together scholars from political science, history, economics, international relations, and security studies to add depth to our understanding of China-India relations. Throughout, the contributors address three common questions: what are the similarities and differences between the two countries' strategic cultures, domestic circumstances, and international environments? What are the broader international contexts for their bilateral relations? And what parallels and tensions exist between their national interests? U.S. policymakers, the academic community, and the informed public require fresh thinking and greater attention to India-China relations, as both countries promise to be of strategic importance to the United States in the decades ahead.

As we move further into a new century, the two most populous nations on earth, China and India, continue a long and tangled relationship. Given their contested border, their nuclear rivalry, their competition for influence in Asia, their growing economic relations, and their internal problems, interaction between these two powers will deeply affect not only stability and prosperity in the region, but also vital U.S. interests. Yet the dynamics of the Chinese-Indian relationship are little known to Americans. This volume brings together scholars from political science, history, economics, international relations, and security studies to add depth to our understanding of China-India relations. Throughout, the contributors address three common questions: what are the similarities and differences between the two countries' strategic cultures, domestic circumstances, and international environments? What are the broader international contexts for their bilateral relations? And what parallels and tensions exist between their national interests? U.S. policymakers, the academic community, and the informed public require fresh thinking and greater attention to India-China relations, as both countries promise to be of strategic importance to the United States in the decades ahead.

China has, since 1976, been enmeshed in an extraordinary program of renewal and reform. The obvious changes—the T-shirts, blue jeans, makeup and jewelry worn by Chinese youth; the disco music blaring from radios and loudspeakers on Chinese streets; the television antennas mushrooming from both urban apartment complexes and suburban peasant housing; the bustling free markets selling meat, vegetables and clothing in China's major cities—reflect a fundamental shift in the government's policy toward the economy and political life.Although doubts about the long-term commitment to reform arose after the student protests in December 1986 and the dismissal of Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang in January 1987, the scope of reform has been so broad and the pace of change so rapid, that the post-Mao era fully warrants Den Xiaoping's description of it as the ""second revolution"" undertaken by the Chinese Communist Party.

President Nixon's historic trip to China in February 1972 marked the beginning of a new era in Sino-American relations. For the first time since 1949, the two countries established high-level official contacts and transformed their relationship from confrontation to collaboration. Over the subsequent twenty years, however, U.S.-China relations have experienced repeated cycles of progress, stalemate, and crisis, with the events in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 the most recent and disruptive example. Paradoxically, although relations between the two countries are vastly more extensive today than they were twenty years ago, they remain highly fragile.In this eagerly awaited book, China expert Harry Harding offers the first comprehensive look at Sino-American relations from 1972 to the present. He traces the evolution of U.S.-China relations, and assesses American policy toward Peking in the post- Tiananmen era.Harding analyzes the changing contexts for the Sino-American relationship, particularly the rapidly evolving international environment, changes in American economic and political life, and the dramatic domestic developments in both China and Taiwan. He discusses the principal substantive issues in U.S.-China relations, including the way in which the two countries have addressed their differences over Taiwan and human rights, and how they have approached the blend of common and competitive interests in their economic and strategic relationships. He also addresses the shifting political base for Sino-American relations within each country, including the development of each society's perceptions of the other, and the emergence and dissolution of rival political coalitions supporting and opposing the relationship.Harding concludes that a return to the Sino-American strategic alignment of the 1970s, or even to the economic partnership of the 1980s, is less likely in the 1990s than continued tension or even confrontation over such issues as