China's Crisis: Dilemmas of Reform and Prospects for Democracy by Andrew J. NathanReview by: Donald S. ZagoriaForeign Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Fall, 1990), p. 197Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20044582 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 14:20

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ForeignAffairs.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.85 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 14:20:41 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RECENT BOOKS 197

This important book comes at a time when the U.S. Congress is

considering some of the first significant changes in aid legislation since

1973; it deserves to be read by all officials involved in revising that

legislation. The author, formerly chief economist for the Agency for International Development, has written a balanced empirical case study of the impact of the U.S. aid program to Thailand. The program's most

important success, Muscat points out, was in helping the Thais to develop the institutions essential to economic development. These included at least 13 major educational institutions as well as 29 key bureaus and depart

ments in the Thai government, plus a number of private organizations such as the Institute of Population Studies, the Industrial Finance Corpo ration and the Institute of Management Education. Beyond its success in

documenting the effectiveness as well as the weaknesses of the U.S. aid

program, the volume also provides a thorough study of the past 40 years of Thai-U.S. relations.

CHINAS CRISIS: DILEMMAS OF REFORM AND PROSPECTS FOR DEMOCRACY. By Andrew J. Nathan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990, 242 pp. $24.50.

This collection of essays, written by the author over the past 15 years,

explores the roots of China's recent crisis and the prospects for establishing a genuinely democratic system. The author is cautiously optimistic. He foresees a weak post-Deng regime, seeking to democratize under the

pressures of economic stagnation and popular dissatisfaction, and aided by a unified army to guarantee stability. The Chinese Communist Party, he

says, will preside over this democratic transition, and a factionalized

opposition will emerge from existing satellite parties. Finally, the tug-of war between the central government and the provinces (some as big as

European states) will continue, the center weakening as the provinces prosper. This is one plausible scenario for the future; pessimists could devise others.

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES: THE UNITED STATES, CHINA AND THE SOVIET UNION, 1948-1972. By Gordon H. Chang. Stanford: Stanford

University Press, 1990, 383 pp. $25.00. This is a well-documented study of U.S. policy debates about China

during nearly two decades of hostility and nonrecognition in the 1950s and 1960s. It enriches our understanding of the ways in which U.S. leaders over

many years tried to exploit the differences between China and the Soviet Union.

CHINA RISING: THE MEANING OF TIANANMEN. By Lee Feigon. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1990, 269 pp. $19.95.

What gives special significance to this eyewitness account of the events

leading up to the Tiananmen massacre is the fact that the author, a China historian from Colby College, places the democracy movement in historical

perspective. He is not particularly sanguine about the future. He holds that the Chinese communist bureaucracy is determined to retain power and

may well be able to do so for a very long time.

CRISIS AT TIANANMEN: REFORM AND REALITY IN MODERN CHINA. By Yi Mu and Mark V. Thompson. San Francisco: China Books, 1990, 283 pp. $14.95 (paper).

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.85 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 14:20:41 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions