A History
By Dun J. Li
New York, Charles Scribner's Sons,
1965, 586 pp., US$8.95
Reviewed by Charles C. Crayton
One of the interesting and perhaps significant, developments in Red China is the increasing historical evidence being produced by the present rulers. Visitors to Peiping and other cities on the mainland report that monuments of past dynasties are being restored. Research has been intensified. Even the new "Sun of Heaven", Mao Tse-tung, is reported to be composing new poems in the classical tradition.
While it is certainly true that Mao's regime has broken with the past in its attempt to impose Communism upon the Chinese people, and seeks to break down allegiance to the family, there is much in the Communists' internal policies, as well as their relations to the outside world, that suggests they have retained a deep sense of identification with the past.
In this respect Dun J. Li's one-volume history of China, from Peking man down to Mao, is valuable in helping the Western world to understand "The Ageless Chinese" and the problems they pose for the world today. Li's history is a detailed look at China's history and culture as it might be viewed by the present rulers. The emphasis is on the unity through the centuries of Chinese civilization, its superiority to other cultures and its impact upon neighboring barbarians.
To suggest this viewpoint should not be interpreted as meaning that the author is blind to the mistakes of China's past. He points out that China has been extremely self-centered and he takes note of China's chauvinism as well as its imperial pretensions. He makes it plain that he is not in sympathy with the Communist regime and describes Mao as a "crafty politician."
The author was educated both in mainland China and the United States. He now teaches history at Paterson State College in New Jersey. He writes in what can be described as the traditional Chinese style and from China's point of view, rather than from that of the West. For example, he accepts China's claims to surrounding tributary states. Burma is described as a Chinese vassal state since 1284. Actually, Burma was first conquered by the Mongols and since that time Burma has frequently defied the Chinese.
Li supports the claim of superiority for Chinese culture and he insists that the invaders from the north were quickly "Sinicized". In fact, he dismisses them with scant attention, although they controlled North China for most of the last millennium and all of China for at least a third of that period. He insists that the Khitan rulers of the Liao Dynasty were "completely Sinicized" and he is on shaky ground in treating the Liao in a chapter devoted to the Sung Dynasty.
Western readers may wonder if, in fact, the Manchus were completely "Sinicized" when Sun Yat-sen was able to arouse the people against them by denouncing them as an "alien people" in the first years of the Twentieth Century. However, the author does describe the century of Mongol rule as culturally "one of the most sterile periods in Chinese history.
While there is little in this volume that is new, Li crams a wealth of interesting detail about Chinese society, its arts, and its government, and he emphasizes that China's history reflects one of mankind's most advanced achievements in culture. It is his thesis that "modern China can be better understood by analyzing China's historical forces", and he suggests that we can understand China's Communist leaders if we know more about how they assess themselves.
The author emphasizes that we cannot understand modern China "unless we understand its grievances". He points out that when Mao "declared that China had stood up, he was echoing the wishes of millions of Chinese, including the reactionaries whom he had vowed to liquidate."
Li voices his concern about the present policies of Peiping. He writes:
"Any government that bases its foreign policy upon the assumption that the United States is a paper tiger is unrealistic to the greatest extreme and can do so only at its own peril. This is clear to everyone, except the Communist leaders ... "
DESIGN FOR SURVIVAL
By Gen. Thomas S. Power
(U.S.A.F., Retired)
with Albert: A. Arnhym
New York, Coward-McConn, 1965,
255 pp., US$5
Reviewed by C. Chen
This is certain to be a widely discussed, if not a controversial book. It is of significance to the free world because it represents a pragmatic blueprint of one way to oppose Communism successfully. It is a "cause celebre", partly because when it was first written in 1959, the Department of Defense refused to clear it for publication. At that time Gen. Power was commander of the Strategic Air Command, the position he held from 1957 until his retirement last fall. Now it has been revised and updated.
The author's "design for survival" is expressed in the text he has taken from Luke XI: 21-22: "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace." He believes that the, United States, and perhaps the world, is today at a crossroads and that what he calls the one-world syndrome cannot produce "the brave new world", while it could endanger the free world. He insists that the Communist purpose of conquest remains clear and unmistakable and that the battle for survival will go on.
General Power is convinced that the combination of nuclear revolution, Communist ideology and power presents a dangerous and continuing threat to all free nations. Moreover, he insists that the United States cannot do what it seems to 'be attempting now; to arm and disarm at the same time. He sees disturbing evidence of trouble in the cutback in U.S. military budgets and in relaxing programs for developing new weapons and reducing military manpower.
The author succeeds in translating the bewildering gobblydegook of the armchair strategists to make his points in terms the average layman can readily comprehend. His formula for dealing with the Communists is deterrence by "discouraging aggression of any type and scope through an overwhelming posture of military strength." The United States, he believes, must have a "credible capability to achieve a military victory under any set of conditions and circumstances." He insists the United States possesses such a capability today, but he feels that if Red China develops effective nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them, the picture wilt change.
General Power opposed the nuclear test ban treaty and he indicates he still has strong reservations about the treaty, since he is convinced that nuclear proliferation is inevitable. He 'also is convinced that the United States must maintain a mixed strategic delivery force in which the manned bomber and one or more nuclear-powered aircraft carriers should have a prominent part. He recognizes the strategic importance of space and urges the United. States to step up its space program.
This is not a sensational book. Rather, it is a sober and common sense analysis of the basic difference between the Doves and the Hawks—a conflict of policy the United States faces today in South Vietnam, in Cuba, in the Congo and elsewhere in the world. His thesis is that survival must be based on strength and that strength is the only thing the Communist world respects.
The armchair strategist certainly is not qualified to appraise the details of General Power's blueprint. But coming from one who for seven years was directly concerned with great responsibility, his book deserves attention. It will obviously be decried by the idealists and the "Parliament of Man" adherents, but it can be said that he brings into the open what is without doubt the greatest issue of our time. For this reason it deserves attention of all nations of the free world.