BOOK REVIEWS

A. Wilmots, La Chine dans le monde, les conflits et différends, le contexte et les moyens

China in the World paints an enthusiastic portrait of a powerful and self-confident China, united around a well-established central authority, free at last from the pressures of foreign powers, its successes triumphing over “the outrages of the past”. This is a China whose influence over the rest of the world can only grow, and which already shares with the United States responsibility for building a “stable and peaceful” world. China in the World is a romance overshadowed by the still menacing “Green Triads” of the Kuomintang and the Japanese samurai. This saga gives us a seductive and illusory vision of an Asian region still centred on a benign Chinese power, with no need for any American presence.

Barely two years after the publication of this work, China’s sabre rattling vis-à-vis Taiwan shows the limits of such an overly optimistic analysis. China describes its international environment as less and less secure, while reactions of distrust towards China, particularly within its immediate environment, are increasing. In contrast with what the author seems to believe, Chinese power is not the future of Asia, on the contrary, Peking—because of its attachment to an outmoded political system—constitutes an element of imbalance much more than of stability in the region. The objective of Chinese power today is not to integrate itself into the international system, accepting its rules and constraints, but rather to exploit the system as best it can, particularly within the UN, an organisation that affords the PRC an opportunity to cause and inflict harm that goes far beyond its real power.

The Chinese vision of the world is thus taken up uncritically. The author sees China as the only country capable of resisting the hegemony of the US, which undoubtedly justifies all indulgence. The refusal to engage in any dialogue on the question of Tibet, China’s sovereignty over which is not called into question, is also justified by the West’s support of the Dalai Lama. In the same vein the “liberation” of Taiwan, China’s “Alsace-Lorraine”, is taken for granted and seen as being delayed only by outside interference.

This fantasy vision of China detracts from the analysis and the relevance of a work that could have proved useful, but which it is difficult to recommend to anyone who does not have a capacity for critical interpretation. All the more so as the eccentric transcriptions of a number of Chinese names makes them difficult to decipher (Jen Zemin for Jiang Zemin, Sion Guangkai instead of Xiong Guangkai, and so on). This, then is not a book that should be given to the general reader, for fear of perpetuating a false and harmful vision of Chinese power that, since the time of Napoleon, has not emerged from the field of dreams. To the expert, Wilmots’ book contains nothing new. It is a book whose target audience is unclear, but whose agenda is obvious. Thus the chapter devoted to Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong, which is a mixture of indirect personal attacks on and terse judgements of this “extravagant personality”, speaks volumes.

The book ends with an anthem to Shanghai—and to private soldier Lei Feng “the antithesis of the marine, the paratrooper and the legionnaire”. Here indeed is the stuff of dreams.