Andrew J. Nathan

Capsule Review
Nov/Dec
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

The contributors to this volume address tensions in ASEAN's new charter between the classic ASEAN principles of consensus and nonintervention and newer principles such as democracy, good governance, and human rights.

Capsule Review
Nov/Dec
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Yang believes that net activism is part of a "long revolution" that is making Chinese society more open, egalitarian, and participatory.

Capsule Review
Nov/Dec
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

This previously untold story bespeaks both the profound insecurity of Japan's geostrategic position and the inventiveness of its elites in looking for solutions.

Capsule Review
Nov/Dec
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Mühlhahn describes prisoners' struggles to preserve pockets of individual freedom and identity under harsh, often fatal conditions.

Capsule Review
Nov/Dec
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Calder makes a good case that the U.S.-Japanese alliance is in trouble.

Capsule Review
Nov/Dec
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

This moving autobiography helps explain why many Uighurs resent Chinese rule.

Capsule Review
Sep/Oct
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Despite the plus ça change quality of the politics of the North Korean crisis, this fly-on-the-wall account of the negotiations that took place from 2002 to 2006 remains as relevant as it is exhaustive.

Capsule Review
Sep/Oct
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Most revealing here is Zhao's measured, substantive account of his work as China's premier from 1980 to 1987, when he was responsible for implementing Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms.

Capsule Review
Sep/Oct
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Skya argues, controversially, that the wave of political assassinations and ideological crackdowns that led to Japanese militarism were not just about power struggles and nationalism; instead, they grew out of a fundamentalist Shinto movement.

Capsule Review
Sep/Oct
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Admirers of Taylor's long, engaging biography of the last authoritarian president of Taiwan, Chiang Ching-kuo, will welcome this thoughtful account of the life of Chiang's father, who governed China from 1927 until 1949 and then ruled Taiwan until his death in 1975.

Capsule Review
Sep/Oct
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Grimes' book is well timed to help one understand the political significance of the renminbi's nascent challenge to the dollar.

Capsule Review
Sep/Oct
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Although Washington's Taiwan policy has been outwardly clear and consistent since 1972 -- defined by the so-called communiqué framework and the Taiwan Relations Act -- Tucker shows that the actual negotiation record from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush was rife with confusion and mistrust.

Capsule Review
Sep/Oct
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

During the 1990s, Chinese officials and scholars conducted an extensive postmortem on both Tiananmen and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Shambaugh traces the discussion through Chinese Communist Party journals.

Capsule Review
Sep/Oct
2009
<p>Minxin Pei</p>

How East Asians View Democracy, a collaboration of leading American and East Asian scholars of democracy and public opinion, is a pioneering effort that relies on standardized survey methods to measure East Asians' support for democracy.

Capsule Review
May/June
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

What do China's leaders mean when they say that the Chinese system is democratic and getting more so? To help answer this question, the influential John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution offers a translated set of key writings by Yu, an adviser to Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Capsule Review
May/June
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

The longtime Asia hand Overholt discusses what he thinks is right (especially in China) and wrong (especially in India and Japan) with Asian cultures, politics, elites, and economic and security policies.

Capsule Review
May/June
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Su's detailed but fast-paced account dissects Beijing's and Taipei's secret contacts in the early 1990s, the history of the so-called 1992 consensus, how Lee consolidated and used power, the origins and consequences of the 1999 crisis, and how electoral dynamics shaped the evolution of former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's strategy.

Capsule Review
May/June
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Based on a year's fieldwork, interrogation records, and anonymous leaflets, among other sources, this book argues that Thailand's overcentralized state failed to give meaningful participation to ethnically Malay Muslim citizens.

Capsule Review
May/June
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

The contributors to this conference volume ask not whether China will democratize but how: by following the path of peaceful transition exemplified by Taiwan or in a way that involves more turbulence?

Capsule Review
May/June
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Dissenting from the conventional view that extremism is caused by religious belief, poverty, or repression, Ollapally presents a series of concise yet probing historical analyses of how security concerns, both domestic and international, led South Asian states to foster extremist movements in their own backyards.

Capsule Review
Mar/Apr
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Engel's collection conveys the local color of a quaint Beijing that is now lost to history and reveals much about the gregarious character and social skills of the man who became the 41st U.S. president.

Capsule Review
Mar/Apr
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Fravel's is an elegant argument that works well to explain Chinese behavior during territorial disputes with all of its 14 land neighbors and six sea neighbors. and holds promise for application elsewhere.

Capsule Review
Mar/Apr
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Medeiros argues that the driving force in the evolution of Chinese nonproliferation policy was persistent, and often coercive, U.S. diplomacy that, over the course of a quarter century, counterbalanced China's financial and political incentives for proliferation, changed China's view of its own strategic interest, and (with nongovernmental involvement) helped China build the specialist community needed to implement its commitments.

Capsule Review
Mar/Apr
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Johnston identifies the working parts of the process by which norms in the international system change the behavior of states; he uses several instances of the involvement by traditionally realpolitik-oriented China in security institutions in which it gave up some military advantage as hard cases to test his theory.

Capsule Review
Mar/Apr
2009
Andrew J. Nathan

Landry's rigorous research and ingenious data analysis show for the first time how much budgetary and political authority local lords in China command, even as the system of promotion incentives under which they work keeps them responsive to central priorities.