A Million Truths: A Decade in China by Linda Jakobson; Street Life China by Michael RobertDuttonReview by: Lucian W. PyeForeign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1999), pp. 150-151Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20049337 .

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Recent Books

Can Asians Think?'by kishore

mahbubani. Singapore: Times

Books International, 1998,192 pp.

$9.95 (paper). Veteran diplomat Kishore Mahbubani,

Singapore's point man in the "Asian values"

debate, is an exceptionally lively and

provocative polemicist. Sadly, this collection

of essays, written during the exhilarating

days of the Asian "miracle," is now a

somewhat embarrassing read as Asian

nations struggle amid economic wreckage. Even more chastening is the way he

chooses to advance his case. Rather

than making a substantive argument

for Asian economic success, he insists

that the West is in decline. Most Americans

will readily admit that the United States has numerous problems, but it seems a

bit much to crudely call them "fatal flaws"?Mahbubani's favorite charac

terization. As he would have it, Japan's

economy has already surpassed that of

the United States, with Chinas running a

close third. True, the reader can sympathize with Mahbubani's desire to toot the horn

of Asian economic success at a time when

American triumphalism after the Cold

War had become a bit grating for the rest of the world. But the challenge of

understanding the modernization of

Asian cultures is far too important to

be treated as a debaters' game.

Building Social Capital in Thailand:

Fibers, Finance, and Infrastructure, by

Danny UNGER. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1998, 248

pp. $59.95 (paper, $19.95). This book examines one of the hottest

ideas in political science today: "social

capital," or the social prerequisites for

building democracy. Unger gives the

concept another dimension by suggesting that it also explains economic development: a high level of social capital facilitates the formation of social networks that advance

banking and commerce. In seeking to

explain Thailand's economic "miracle" in

the 1980s, Unger finds his answer in the

cultural differences between the Thais

and Chinese. The relatively easy-going Thai culture produced officials who were

untroubled about giving free reign to the

compulsively driven Chinese. In turn,

the Chinese, culturally predisposed toward

building social networks, are able to

cultivate business contacts and thereby find investment opportunities. Unger does

not go further to explore how the same

reliance on networking also led to crony

capitalism and economic disaster, and his

prose is dense. Nevertheless, his insights and analysis remain impressive. This is

cultural analysis at its best, illuminating how two different sets of Asian values

converged to produce economic prosperity.

A Million Truths: A Decade in China, by linda jakobson. New York: M.

Evans, 1998, 224 pp. $24.95. Street Life China, edited by michael

Robert DUTTON. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1999,320

pp. $54.95 (paper, $19.95). What is life like today for the ordinary

Chinese? China's opening to the outside

world has greatly improved Western

understanding of the country's political and economic developments, but its daily life remains largely unexamined by out

siders. These two books seek to provide

answers, though by quite different methods. Jakobson personally immersed

herself in Chinese social life, first as a

student, then as a teacher, and finally as a

[150] FOREIGN AFFAIRS-Volume 78 No. 3

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Recent Books

Journalist. After years of living with

Chinese families, trusted to the point of becoming

a godmother in one and an

intimate friend of several Chinese women,

she is able to recount the joys, frustrations,

hopes, and fears of ordinary citizens in

both urban and rural China. Her book

has the rich context of a good novel. Mean

while, Dutton captures the dynamics of

Chinese social life through translations

of Chinese writings on daily life: descrip tions of life within a work unit, personal

complaints about various public policies, and ruminations about everything from

shopping to Mao's impact on Chinese

culture. In different ways, the two books

succeed in giving a human dimension to

what has too long been the vast abstraction

called the "Chinese people." Both Jakobson and Dutton avoid either romanticizing or

demonizing the Chinese. At the same

time, they underscore the unique qualities of Chinese culture that make its social

context so different from the West.

A Triad of Another Kind: The United

States, China, and Japan, by ming

ZHANG AND RONALD N.

MONTAPERTO. New York: St.

Martin's, 1999,302 pp. $49.95. The United States, China, and Japan will

decisively shape the future international

relations of East Asia?but how the three

powers will cooperate with or collude

against each other remains an open

question. Zhang and Montaperto explore the prospects for the triad by combining

rigorous theoretical analysis with a care

ful historical review of the three states,

examining each pair of relations with

respect to the most troublesome problem

affecting it to determine the prospects for stability. In their eyes, Taiwan is the

decisive obstacle in the China-U.S.

relationship, while the Mutual Defense

Treaty will shape the partnership between

Japan and the United States. Meanwhile,

the relative power of China and Japan will profoundly affect the relations between

those two major Asian powers. The authors

acknowledge that many other factors

exist outside the scope of their work

that might influence the triad as well.

Within the limited mandate they have set for themselves, however, they provide

profound and insightful analysis and a

storehouse of valuable information about

the balance of military forces.

Africa GAIL M. GERHART

Multi-Party Politics in Kenya: The Kenyatta and Moi States and the Triumph of the

System in the 1992 Election, by david

THROUP AND CHARLES HORNSBY.

Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998, 290 pp. $29.95 (paPer)

After playing little part in African politics for decades, African elections assumed a

new importance in the 1990s and revived

the venerable tradition of election studies.

This study of the 1992 Kenyan general election is a tour de force, with 100 figures and tables plus 38 pages of appendices

giving presidential and parliamentary results from every constituency. The

authors, two British political scientists, have not only done an expert job of

interpreting the election but have neatly traced the emergence of the major

opposition parties and their collapse into

ethnic blocs held together by neopatri monial, old-guard leaders?the Kenyan

FOREIGN AFFAIRS-May/June 1999 [151]

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