115
BRITAIN AND CHINA'
Reviewed by COLINA LUPTON, M.A.2
China is and will probably continue for some time to be the most unpredictable element in world affairs. With the passage of time she becomes more, not less so; her motives grow more obscure, her economic development more problematical, her political life—within the echelons of the Communist Party—more a matter for conjecture. On the face which she turns to the world there is little sign of the stresses and strains which she is undergoing; the information which China publishes about herself is remarkable only for the lack of knowledge it conveys. Unhappily—in view of our ignorance China is likely by sheer weight of numbers to be the dominant influence in the world in perhaps twenty years' time, and how this unleashed dragon will deal then with other nations largely depends on the kind of handling she receives now.
Hence any book which sheds light on Chinese thought processes, in particular relating present policies to past treatment, is a valuable one. Mr. Luard has gone one better and conjectured the course of the future. His book sets out a sane and lucid account of relations with China since the first British ships reached her shores in 1637, and describes both what he expects to see and what he would like to see happen in the next few years. In what really amounts to a series of essays on the historical background, on the Kuomintang, the Communists and the Korean war, on missionaries and merchants, Hong Kong and Taiwan—he neatly discusses, without a superfluity of chronological detail, the past, the present, and the future. This method necessitates a little overlapping between the chapters, but it is worth this since it saves a lot of narration inessential to the point of the book. For the author is trying to discuss sentiments and policies as much as facts, and this kind of pattern gives him the scope to do so. This is certainly not to say that he has ignored facts; though the historical background is compressed, the account of Britain's dealings with the Mao Tse-tung regime is very fully treated.
By Evan Luard. Chatto and Windus, 1962. 25/-.
* The writer was formerly a research assistant in the Far East Department of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. She has been living in Hong Kong since the end of 1960, and is Assistant Editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review.
115
BRITAIN AND CHINA'
Reviewed by COLINA LUPTON, M.A.2
China is and will probably continue for some time to be the most unpredictable element in world affairs. With the passage of time she becomes more, not less so; her motives grow more obscure, her economic development more problematical, her political life-within the echelons of the Communist Party- more a matter for conjecture. On the face which she turns to the world there is little sign of the stresses and strains which she is undergoing; the information which China publishes about herself is remarkable only for the lack of knowledge it conveys. Unhappily-in view of our ignorance China is likely by sheer weight of numbers to be the dominant influence in the world in perhaps twenty years' time, and how this unleashed dragon will deal then with other nations largely depends on the kind of handling she receives now.
Hence any book which sheds light on Chinese thought processes, in particular relating present policies to past treatment, is a valuable one. Mr. Luard has gone one better and conjectured the course of the future. His book sets out a sane and lucid account of relations with China since the first British ships reached her shores in 1637, and describes both what he expects to see and what he would like to see happen in the next few years. In what really amounts to a series of essays on the historical background, on the Kuomintang, the Communists and the Korean war, on missionaries and merchants, Hong Kong and Taiwan-he neatly discusses, without a superfluity of chronological detail, the past, the present, and the future. This method necessitates a little overlapping between the chapters, but it is worth this since it saves a lot of narration inessential to the point of the book. For the author is trying to discuss sentiments and policies as much as facts, and this kind of pattern gives him the scope to do so. This is certainly not to say that he has ignored facts; though the historical background is compressed, the account of Britain's dealings with the Mao Tse-tung regime is very fully treated.
By Evan Luard. Chatto and Windus, 1962. 25/-.
* The writer was formerly a research assistant in the Far East Depart- ment of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. She has been living in Hong Kong since the end of 1960, and is Assistant Editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review.
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