The United States and China, 4th edition; The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity, Enlarged Edition
In addition to their collaborative effort that produced the classic history of East Asia, Fairbank and Reischauer also wrote classics of modern history that brought China and Japan up to the present. Fairbank's The United States and China, first published in 1948 and now in its fourth edition, has nourished two generations of scholars and still flashes with brilliance. It brings events up to 1982. Reischauer's The Japanese Today is still the broadest available overview of Japanese politics, history, religion, and education. Originally published in 1988, it has been brought up to the early 1990s by Jansen. These two volumes are the most reliable histories of modern China and Japan in English.
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China is headed in the right direction. Deng's successors cannot achieve his stature, and the more stable and secure China remains, the faster power will devolve to a more liberal generation. As in other Asian nations, economic development will foster political liberalization, as well as a capitalist Hong Kong and an independent Taiwan. Though decentralization is stressful, China does not suffer from the structural weaknesses that undermined the Soviet Union. Corruption and human rights abuses are severe, but citizens can vote in competitive local elections and change jobs as they wish. China should be permitted to continue a liberation unprecedented in history.
China's reform policies have created economic opportunities, but they have also unleashed political tensions. Some U.S. strategists advocate a containment strategy, yet such a strategy is both undesirable and infeasible. America's fortunes in Asia depend on the evolution of a China that is secure, cohesive, reform-oriented, and open to the world. Failed reform could easily lead to a nationalistic, obstructionist China. In recent years, Washington, while trying to engage the People's Republic, has driven it into a corner over human rights. America must develop a long-term strategy to integrate China into the world community and avert serious damage to this crucial bilateral relationship. And it must begin to do so now.
Lester Brown asks, Who Will Feed China? He forecasts food shortages there in coming decades, caused by population growth, a depleted environment, and farm production that he claims is pushing its limits. But he misgauges the potential of farmland and markets worldwide. The real problem is, who will feed Africa?
