Joshua Eisenman - Böcker

China’s dismantling of the Mao-era rural commune system and return to individual household farming under Deng Xiaoping has been seen as a successful turn away from a misguided social experiment and a rejection of the disastrous policies that produced widespread famine. In this revisionist study, Joshua Eisenman marshals previously inaccessible data to overturn this narrative, showing that the commune modernized agriculture, increased productivity, and spurred an agricultural green revolution that laid the foundation for China’s future rapid growth.Red China’s Green Revolution tells the story of the commune’s origins, evolution, and downfall, demonstrating its role in China’s economic ascendance. After 1970, the commune emerged as a hybrid institution, including both collective and private elements, with a high degree of local control over economic decision but almost no say over political ones. It had an integrated agricultural research and extension system that promoted agricultural modernization and collectively owned local enterprises and small factories that spread rural industrialization. The commune transmitted Mao’s collectivist ideology and enforced collective isolation so it could overwork and underpay its households. Eisenman argues that the commune was eliminated not because it was unproductive, but because it was politically undesirable: it was the post-Mao leadership led by Deng Xiaoping—not rural residents—who chose to abandon the commune in order to consolidate their control over China. Based on detailed and systematic national, provincial, and county-level data, as well as interviews with agricultural experts and former commune members, Red China’s Green Revolution is a comprehensive historical and social scientific analysis that fundamentally challenges our understanding of recent Chinese economic history.

China’s dismantling of the Mao-era rural commune system and return to individual household farming under Deng Xiaoping has been seen as a successful turn away from a misguided social experiment and a rejection of the disastrous policies that produced widespread famine. In this revisionist study, Joshua Eisenman marshals previously inaccessible data to overturn this narrative, showing that the commune modernized agriculture, increased productivity, and spurred an agricultural green revolution that laid the foundation for China’s future rapid growth.Red China’s Green Revolution tells the story of the commune’s origins, evolution, and downfall, demonstrating its role in China’s economic ascendance. After 1970, the commune emerged as a hybrid institution, including both collective and private elements, with a high degree of local control over economic decision but almost no say over political ones. It had an integrated agricultural research and extension system that promoted agricultural modernization and collectively owned local enterprises and small factories that spread rural industrialization. The commune transmitted Mao’s collectivist ideology and enforced collective isolation so it could overwork and underpay its households. Eisenman argues that the commune was eliminated not because it was unproductive, but because it was politically undesirable: it was the post-Mao leadership led by Deng Xiaoping—not rural residents—who chose to abandon the commune in order to consolidate their control over China. Based on detailed and systematic national, provincial, and county-level data, as well as interviews with agricultural experts and former commune members, Red China’s Green Revolution is a comprehensive historical and social scientific analysis that fundamentally challenges our understanding of recent Chinese economic history.

Since Xi Jinping’s accession to power in 2012, nearly every aspect of China’s relations with Africa has grown dramatically. Beijing has increased the share of resources it devotes to African countries, expanding military cooperation, technological investment, and educational and cultural programs as well as extending its political influence.This book examines the full scope of contemporary political and security relations between China and Africa. David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman not only explain the specific tactics and methods that Beijing uses to build its strategic relations with African political and military elites but also contextualize and interpret them within China’s larger geostrategy. They argue that the priorities of Chinese leaders—including the conflation of threats to the Communist Party with threats to the country, a growing emphasis on relations in the Global South, and a focus on countering U.S. hegemony—have combined to elevate Africa’s importance among policy makers in Beijing.Ranging from diplomacy and propaganda to arms sales and space cooperation, from increasingly frequent People’s Liberation Army Navy port calls in Africa to the rising number of African students studying in China, this book marshals extensive and compelling qualitative and quantitative evidence of the deepening ties between China and Africa. Drawing on two decades of systematic data and hundreds of surveys and in-person interviews, Shinn and Eisenman shed new light on the state of China-Africa relations today and consider what the future may hold.

Since Xi Jinping’s accession to power in 2012, nearly every aspect of China’s relations with Africa has grown dramatically. Beijing has increased the share of resources it devotes to African countries, expanding military cooperation, technological investment, and educational and cultural programs as well as extending its political influence.This book examines the full scope of contemporary political and security relations between China and Africa. David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman not only explain the specific tactics and methods that Beijing uses to build its strategic relations with African political and military elites but also contextualize and interpret them within China’s larger geostrategy. They argue that the priorities of Chinese leaders—including the conflation of threats to the Communist Party with threats to the country, a growing emphasis on relations in the Global South, and a focus on countering U.S. hegemony—have combined to elevate Africa’s importance among policy makers in Beijing.Ranging from diplomacy and propaganda to arms sales and space cooperation, from increasingly frequent People’s Liberation Army Navy port calls in Africa to the rising number of African students studying in China, this book marshals extensive and compelling qualitative and quantitative evidence of the deepening ties between China and Africa. Drawing on two decades of systematic data and hundreds of surveys and in-person interviews, Shinn and Eisenman shed new light on the state of China-Africa relations today and consider what the future may hold.

The People's Republic of China once limited its involvement in African affairs to building an occasional railroad or port, supporting African liberation movements, and loudly proclaiming socialist solidarity with the downtrodden of the continent. Now Chinese diplomats and Chinese companies, both state-owned and private, along with an influx of Chinese workers, have spread throughout Africa. This shift is one of the most important geopolitical phenomena of our time. China and Africa: A Century of Engagement presents a comprehensive view of the relationship between this powerful Asian nation and the countries of Africa.This book, the first of its kind to be published since the 1970s, examines all facets of China's relationship with each of the fifty-four African nations. It reviews the history of China's relations with the continent, looking back past the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. It looks at a broad range of areas that define this relationship-politics, trade, investment, foreign aid, military, security, and culture-providing a significant historical backdrop for each. David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman's study combines careful observation, meticulous data analysis, and detailed understanding gained through diplomatic experience and extensive travel in China and Africa. China and Africa demonstrates that while China's connection to Africa is different from that of Western nations, it is no less complex. Africans and Chinese are still developing their perceptions of each other, and these changing views have both positive and negative dimensions.

What are Beijing’s objectives towards the developing world and how they have evolved and been pursued over time? Featuring contributions by recognized experts, China Steps Out analyzes and explains China’s strategies in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Africa, Middle East, and Latin America, and evaluates their effectiveness. This book explains how other countries perceive and respond to China’s growing engagement and influence. Each chapter is informed by the functionally organized academic literature and addresses a uniform set of questions about Beijing’s strategy. Using a regional approach, the authors are able to make comparisons among regions based on their economic, political, military, and social characteristics, and consider the unique features of Chinese engagement in each region and the developing world as a whole. China Steps Out will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese foreign policy, comparative political economy, and international relations.