Arthur Huck

7/28/2019 Arthur Huck

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/arthur-huck 1/4



Book Reviews

free of flawsand errors. It is remarkablybalanced and detailed onChina's relationswith the Third World as well as withthe threemajorpowers-the Soviet Union, the United States,and Japan. The author

utilizesEnglishand Frenchsourceswell,and is particularlyubtle nhisreadingof Chinese statementsn translation.His carefulfootnotes ndextensivebibliographyprovide an ample guide for expansion on hissubjectby studentand teacher.Such expansion is necessary n viewofthe extremely ightbut commendablecompressionof eventswithin herelatively rief attentiongivento the many subjectscovered.

As an introductionto contemporaryChinese foreign policy,thiswork both updates and replaces earlierbooks byHarold Hinton,JohnGittings, nd Michael Yahuda. Integrationof theoryand practice is

consistent hroughout.His summary ectionsare nicelybalanced. He isfrank in addressing the contradictionbetween Maoist revolutionaryrhetoric nd the recurrentreturnto traditional ealpolitik.f he under-statesthe impactof domesticand factionalpoliticspriorto theCulturalRevolution,he is onlyreflecting he absence of evidence and scholarlyresearch on this earlierperiod. In short,Camilleri s to be commendedforundertaking n ambitioustaskand completing tso succinctlys wellas successfully. he publishershould issue a paperbackversion oon, so

as to facilitate hewidest classroomuse at the earliestopportunity.UniversityfArizona,U.S.A. ALLEN S. WHITING

CHINA, THE SOVIET UNION, AND THE WEST. Strategic nd PoliticalDimensionsin the 1980s. Editedby ouglasT. Stuart nd William .Tow. Boulder, Colorado: WestviewPress. 1982. xxv, 309 pp.US$30.00, clothl$13.95, aper.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WAR AND PEACE. TheSino-Soviet-American Triangle and the Modern SecurityProblematique.By

Richard K. Ashley.London: Frances PinterPublishers/Nework:Nichols ublishing ompany. 980. xv,384 pp. ?17.501US$31.50.

THESE TWO BOOKS are fine xamples ofAmericanscholarship ndindustry. hey are also both exhausting. China,the ovietUnion, nd theWestbrings together twenty-threexperts who attended withmanyothers the GarmischSymposium, multi-sponsored ffair ttendedby"manykeyU.S. and European officials." arold Hinton,JurgenDomes,RichardLowenthal, Kenneth Hunt, RobertScalapino, Thomas Robin-son, Drew Middleton, Edward Luttwak,JonathanPollack-you namethem, heywereall there.And very horoughlyheygo over theground.Part I examines the determinants f Chinese and Sovietforeign-policybehaviour,coveringdomesticpolitics nChina and the SovietUnion, thedegenerationof the ideological dispute (Richard Lowenthal),and eco-

493



Pacfic Affairs

nomic and technical factors.Part II deals with the military imensionand provides detailed theatre-force omparisons, Sino-Soviet navalcomparisons, Soviet military ptions and Chinese strategicresponses.

Part III covers regional competitionbetween Beijing and Moscow inAsia, SouthwestAsia, Africa,Europe and, of course, the Balkans. PartIV examines policy considerationsfor the West.

The first hree parts are detailed, meticulously ompiled and as up-to-date as possible. Nothing verynew emerges,however. We seem tohave been living with the tensions and comedies of the Sino-Sovietdisputes for so long that they have become part of the permanentbackground of our lives-like the Bomb. Part V nevertheless sks whatthe West should be doing about it. Col. Kennedy thinksthat, in a

situationwherethe Soviet Union might ry o extend ts power eastwardas well as southward, the United States should undertake a majorrestructuring f its force-posture n Asia-in the editors' words, "toreassure China and Japan regardingAmerica'scommitment nd resolveand to present the USSR with a counterthreatn a region where theSoviet Union has serious geostrategic ulnerabilities." he map on page258 showinga "Proposed U.S. Force Structure-Asia and the Pacific"bears an uncanny similarityo themaps the Chinese used to publish n

the good old days showing "American Imperialism's Military ncircle-mentof China"! (See, forexample, People'sDaily,January29, 1966.)Luttwak and Pollack are not so sure thiswould be a good idea. In

chapters on "The PRC in Soviet Grand Strategy"and "Sino-SovietRelations nStrategicPerspective," hey eparately xamine the dea thatChina has replaced the United States as the"mainenemy" n theSovietstrategic alculus, and the possibility f a new Sino-Sovietrapproche-ment. What a wise U.S. president hould do in this ituation s far fromclear. Pollack concludes that "an unambiguous 'China tilt'designed to

winChinese favordoes notguaranteethatBeijingwillmaintain whollyantagonisticpolicyvis-a-visMoscow. Indeed, thecontrarymayhold: byplacingourselves so unequivocally n a postureof totalhostilityowardtheUSSR, we would leave the PRC free to deal however tpleased withtheUSSR, secure in theknowledgethat theUnited States and its allieshad reduced their room for maneuver to dangerously ow levels.Theflexibilityhat the Chinese retain n planningtheirforeign nd securitypolicies,therefore, emainsworthy f both the attention nd emulationof the West. It is a 'great game' that more than one state can play."

Readers who do not want to see Sir Halford Mackinder revivedmightturn to Richard Ashley's book. Here theywill find a seriousattempt oget awayfromtherepetitive raditional ttempts o deal withthemultiple problemsof international ffairs. The conceptual frame-workdeveloped here owes itsorigins,most mmediately, o the proto-theory' developed by Choucri and North and, more distantly, o the

494



BookReviews

wide rray f theoreticalraditionsheyhave sought o synthesizeverseveral ears. iketheChoucri-Northerspective,hepresentonceptu-alization iews nternationalelations rom particularantage oint:

thevantagepointof peace research,with ts ongstandingalbeitfarfrom xclusive) oncernfor the causes of war" p. 10). It does notaddress tself o suchminor uestions s how problematique"ecamenoun.

The majordata-base erives rom he periodof Sino-Soviet-Ameri-can relations etween 950 and 1972. There are eighteen ables, orty-four iguresndinnumerablequations.A serious eview f thesemustbe left to the econometricournals. The conclusions re generallygloomy: 'Ineluctable'meansthatwhich annotbe gotten ut of,and

thepicture f the security roblematique resentedn the precedingpropositionsertainly eems to portray n ineluctableystem.t is aviolence-proneystem.t is an irrationallyestructiveystem. nd t s asystem romwhich here ppearsto beno rational ourse fescape" p.205).Five echnicalppendices o notdo much o ightenhegloom.Wecanonlyhopeand pray.

UniversityfMelbourne,ustralia ARTHUR HucK

THE IMPERIAL MING TOMBS. Text ndphotographsyAnnPaludan.Foreword yL. Carrington oodrich. ewHaven and London:YaleUniversityress. 1981. xviii, 51 pp. US$35.00.

AMONG THE IMPERIAL TOMBS ofChinathroughouthe ges,noneare more well-known and better preserved than those of the MingDynasty 1368-1644) in Nanking and on the hills to the northwest fPeking.When this reviewerfirst isitedthe sites n the late 1920s, most

of them were in varyingdegrees of dilapidation. In the early 1950s,some of them were restored and one-Ting-ling-excavated. Subse-quently, hey were listed as nationalmonuments, pened to the publicand frequented by hosts of tourists ll the yearround.

Fromtime mmemorial, he Chinese have been greatlypreoccupiedwith the internmentof the dead. Their belief in a future existencegoverned the preparation of their finalresting-places,which served topreserve the body as well as to please the spirit.Elaborate accountsofroyal tombs may be found in the dynastic histories, and concreteevidence has been providedby recent archaeological discoveries.

Ann Paludan's beautifulvolume, under reviewhere, covers in onesweep the thirteenMingtombsnear Peking,theChing-t'ai'smausoleumintheWesternHills, and also the Hsiao-ling, ombof the founderofthedynasty, n Nanking. The book was born of several years' Sundaypicnics, nd ithas been put togetherwith ovingcare. Following brief

495

Documents

Arthur Huck