The Era of Jiang Zemin by Willy Wo-Lap LamReview by: Lucian W. PyeForeign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 1999), pp. 147-148Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20049426 .

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Recent Books

her childhood after nearly two decades of

absence. The girl whose parents abruptly

swept her away from the turmoil in Tehran

in 1979 returns as a perceptive young jour nalist. She revisits quirky relatives, tussles

with the Iranian bureaucracy over her

American passport, gets updated on the

mating rituals and social mores of her

contemporaries, and grapples with the

nostalgia and sense of loss for the Iran

of her childhood. Although apolitical in tone and purpose, To See and See Again is worth reading for its insights into the contradictions and complexities of

Iranian society. ELLEN LAIPSON

traditional culture?a mix that has pro duced a nationalism vacillating between

self-deprecation and xenophobia. The

scene that Barm? describes is too lively and confusing to provide any clear guide lines on where China may be heading in

the post-Marxist cultural domain. Despite the recent resurgence of political repression,

however, it is not implausible that China's

writers, artists, performers, and cultural

entrepreneurs are already shaping post

Communist political culture into a

more pluralistic phenomenon.

The Era of Jiang Zemin, by willy

wo-lap lam. Singapore: Prentice

Hall, 1999,400 pp. $18.00 (paper).

Jiang Zemin has not commanded great

respect in the West?succeeding two

larger-than-life leaders, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, is no easy assignment. But Willy Wo-Lap Lam, the doyen of

China-watchers, has drawn on inside

information and a deep understanding of

Chinese politics to paint a surprisingly

respectful picture of Jiang. Building on his pieces for Hong Kong's South China

Morning Post, Lam offers a detailed account

of politics at the pinnacle of power in

post-Deng China. He depicts Jiang as a

master political fixer and manipulator,

something of a showman, but also a leader

deficient in "the vision thing." With its old ideology discredited, the once all

powerful Communist Party is losing its

coherence and discipline while economic

problems are becoming

ever more ominous.

Nevertheless, Jiang's political skills are in fact quite impressive. He has shattered the

Beijing gang's hold on central power and

consistently maneuvered Prime Minister

Zhu Rongji into taking on impossible tasks. Lacking a grand vision beyond

Asia and the Pacific LUC?AN W. PYE

In the Red: Contemporary Chinese Culture.

BY GEREMIE R. BARM?. NewYork:

Columbia University Press, 1999,

448 pp. $30.00. Western news reporting often implies that

China is a land absorbed with economic

development and political repression. In

fact, it also possesses an astonishingly

lively popular culture. Australian scholar

Geremie Barm? is the most knowledgeable and well-connected Western authority on China's cultural scene, fully in tune

with the constant cat-and-mouse game that writers and artists play with authorities

oscillating between repression and hints

of liberalization. He is most informative

in his insider reporting on the shifting fashions among Chinese writers. The

lively prose charts the ambivalent Chinese

reaction to international cultural trends

as well as developments within Chinese

FOREIGN AFFAIRS - July/August 1999 [147]

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Recent Books

stability and muddling through, however,

Jiang will find it difficult to advance China

through political manipulation alone.

such enduring political power, given that cities usually dominate politics in

developing nations. He argues that the

institutionalization of electoral politics occurred before industrialization, which

allowed peasants to learn the power of

the ballot from the start. Soon thereafter, bureaucrats and politicians became

enmeshed in agricultural policy. Like

Hansen, Varshney sees the Congress

Party split as seminal in switching the

roles of the central and state authorities

and in granting further advantages to the

rural sector. Yet he also sees the growth of rural power as limited because religious and caste cleavages continue to divide the

countryside and inhibit collective action.

As a result, he is less concerned over the

threat of Hindu nationalism. Time will

tell whether identity politics or economic interests will determine the next phase of

India's development.

The Saffron Wave: Democracy and

Hindu Nationalism in Modern India.

BY THOMAS BLOM HANSEN.

Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1999,328 pp. $49.50.

Democracy, Development, and the

Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in

India. BY ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 229 pp. $21.95 (paper).

Is Hindu nationalism about to subvert

India's remarkable democracy? Why can't India do a better job of reforming its economy? In tackling these questions,

Hansen goes back to the two antidemo

cratic constraints that have flawed India's

secular democracy since independence. First is the exaggerated attachment to

a technocratic administrative culture, which has caused Indians far more trouble

in the transition to a market economy than the Chinese ever faced. Second is the

government pledge to respect all religious communities and the affirmative-action

demands of the lower castes. The system worked in the early years because state and

local bosses wielded enough authority to

accommodate diversity. But after Indira

Gandhi split the Congress Party in

1969, the central government had to

address India's diversity directly?which opened the door to religion-based politics and the "saffron wave" of Hindu nation

alism. Although Hansen advances a subde

and sophisticated argument, he also

muddles his presentation with dense

postmodern rhetoric.

Varshney takes a different tack and asks

why the Indian countryside has enjoyed

Giants of Japan: The Lives of Japans Greatest Men and Women, by mark

weston. New York: Kodansha

America, 1999,352 pp. $30.00.

Everyone knows that consensus and

conformity rule in Japan, right? Wrong,

says Weston, who uses the biographies of outstanding Japanese to better under

stand Japanese economics, history, cultural

traditions, and politics. Starting with the

founders of Japan's great corporations?

Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Honda, and

Sony?Weston devotes more discussion

to business life in Japan than to individual

personalities. His treatment of historical

figures provides a vivid picture of Japanese

feudal society, and his recounting of

the great shoguns serves as an excellent

introduction to Japanese history. His

unique approach allows! him to fill the

[148] FOREIGN AFFAIRS- Volume78N0.4

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