China After Jiang

One of the first evaluations of China's leadership transition with Jiang Zemin's 2002 retirement as Communist Party chief, this book probes the country's related institutional transitions—both those under way and those still needed if China is to remain stable and prosperous in the 21st century.

As China increasingly becomes an economic powerhouse, Westerners are faced with the challenge of understanding how Chinese business people do business. In order to do so, they must understand not only how China is modernizing, but also five thousand years of underlying Chinese culture. Confucian ethics, Taoist influences, and classics like Sun Zi's Art of War still offer powerful insights. One key influence long overlooked in the West is the "Thirty-Six Strategies": a summary of the key war strategies used by ancient Chinese warriors, which is widely known in China and frequently applied in business, by Chinese business people and others throughout Asia. This book brings these strategies to the West, offering unique and timely insight into the mind of the Chinese strategist. This book presents insightful, thoughtful discussions of all 36 strategies, with examples of how they might be used by Asian business people. The strategies encompass leveraging advantage, exploiting vulnerabilities; offensive strategies; deception, confusion, and what to do when desperate. This book bridges the gap of understanding between East and West -- and it has never been more timely.

This pathbreaking book is the first full-length study of the rise to power of Jiang Zemin, now the central figure in China's "third generation" of leaders. Tracing Jiang's beginnings as a student in the underground Communist movement in Shanghai through his appointment by Deng Xiaoping as party general secretary and his sudden elevation to central authority in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre in Beijing, Bruce Gilley offers a fascinating and highly readable look at how Jiang Zemin has secured his position as one of the world's most powerful figures. Gilley follows Jiang's life and career from his early years as the adopted son of a revolutionary martyr, through his training in Western science and engineering, to his emergence as what many believed would be an interim figurehead in the wake of Tiananmen. Gilley shows how Jiang instead persisted as China's key leader following the death of Deng Xiaoping: While he shared the concerns of the last of the Party elders—including their idealistic views of Chinese socialism—he also accommodated the younger generation of economic reformers who have helped China to achieve staggering growth in its domestic economy and foreign trade. Gilley's analysis of the careful and methodical transition of power from Deng to Jiang during the 1990s is a remarkable study in complexity and contrast, clearly illustrating Jiang's ability to either placate his allies and adversaries or ruthlessly exploit their weaknesses. Based on first-hand interviews and primary documents as well as a variety of mainland Chinese and international media sources, Tiger on the Brink is an unprecedented and immensely revealing look into the highest echelons of Chinese politics on the eve of the twenty-first century, and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the world's most populous nation and its newest emerging superpower.

Jiang Zemin’s life and leadership sweep through almost eighty tumultuous years of Chinese history: Japanese occupation, Civil War, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, and, more recently, dramatic economic growth, tensions with Taiwan, and opportunities and confrontations with America. Jiang’s story is an epic of war, deprivation, revolution, political turmoil, social convulsion, economic reform, national transformation, and international resurgence. To Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a longtime China observer, understanding the legacy of Jiang Zemin is essential for understanding the challenges of contemporary China. By examining Jiang’s life, we observe the clash between China’s traditional culture and chaotic history, and we appreciate how its changes impact the entire world. InThe Man Who Changed China, Kuhn, who was cited by the AsianWall Street Journalfor the “unprecedented access” he was given in the course of writing this book, has produced what the Journal called “probably the closest thing to an authorized biography that’s possible in Communist China.” Here a reader will find a complex and nuanced portrait of China’s senior leader, whose policies continue to exert great influence over the course of his country. Kuhn offers insight into how the Japanese occupation during Jiang’s teenage years imprinted his psyche for life, how he became a Communist, and how, decades later, he struggled to transform the Party in the face of withering criticism. In a sense, Kuhn argues, Jiang’s early skeptics got it right: He was a transitional figure—but not in the way they had meant. With unshakable if paternalistic vision, a lifelong love of Chinese civilization, and backroom political skills that no one had anticipated, Jiang Zemin became an unexpected agent of change, effecting the transition from a traumatized society to a confident, prosperous country rapidly ascending in the new world order. Kuhn shows how Jiang led China through an amazing metamorphosis—from a fretful country destabilized by the turmoil and crackdown in Tiananmen Square into a vibrant nation that became a primary engine of global economic growth. Above all Jiang is a Chinese patriot—and it is important to appreciate what that really means. In offering this unusually intimate and comprehensive personal and political biography, Kuhn demonstrates that Jiang Zemin’s life personifies the history of contemporary China, giving invaluable insight into what China is today and will become in the future.

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China over 70 years ago, five paramount leaders have shaped the fates and fortunes of the nation and the ruling Chinese Communist Party: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. Under their leaderships, China has undergone an extraordinary transformation from an undeveloped and insular country to a comprehensive world power. In this definitive study, renowned Sinologist David Shambaugh offers a refreshing account of China’s dramatic post-revolutionary history through the prism of those who ruled it. Exploring the persona, formative socialization, psychology, and professional experiences of each leader, Shambaugh shows how their differing leadership styles and tactics of rule shaped China domestically and internationally: Mao was a populist tyrant, Deng a pragmatic Leninist, Jiang a bureaucratic politician, Hu a technocratic apparatchik, and Xi a modern emperor. Covering the full scope of these leaders’ personalities and power, this is an illuminating guide to China’s modern history and understanding how China has become the superpower of today.

An analysis of the evolution of China's leader, Jiang Zemin, taking as its starting point the pivotal 15th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. It details the personalities and platforms that have been contending for control and the strategies used by Jiang to consolidate his position.

Exploring the remarkable story of China’s rise to global prominence, China since 1949 provides a concise yet comprehensive overview of the events that have shaped the country since the middle of the twentieth century. Covering the Maoist era through the Reform period to the present day, this book addresses subjects such as China’s position as a world economic power, the Chinese Communist Party’s treatment of ethnic minorities, women’s experiences under the Communist regime, and China’s human rights record. Fully updated throughout, the third edition includes: a new chapter focusing on China since 2010 discussion of current issues such as China’s territorial disputes, computer hacking and cyber-espionage, corruption, leadership changes, and the slowing of China’s economic growth extensively revised chapters on China and the World and on Government, Politics and the Economy An updated selection of primary source documents. Also containing a chronology of events from 1949 to 2015, a Who’s Who of key figures, a glossary and a guide to further reading, China Since 1949 is an accessible and engaging introduction to China’s recent past and essential reading for students of modern Chinese history.

Who will govern China after Jiang Zemin? What path will its new leaders chart in the early years of the twenty-first century? Drawing upon a wealth of both quantitative and qualitative data on the so-called fourth generation of leaders_those who were young during the Cultural Revolution_Cheng Li shows that this group is more diversified than previous generations in formative experiences, political solidarity, ideological conviction, and occupational background. The author explores the contradictions between these emerging leaders and their non-elite peers who were barred from education during the Mao era and now often are unemployed and disenchanted. The book concludes with the intriguing notion that this generation of leaders may have a better understanding of its peersO concerns and therefore may make the regime more accountable to its people, thus contributing to, rather than opposing, democratic development.