About this item
From the former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of Chinas Second Continent, an incisive investigation of Chinas ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy. For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, reports Howard French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is a strain of thinking that casts Chinas present-day actions in decidedly historical terms, as the path to restoring the dynastic glory of the past. If we understand how that historical identity relates to current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become - and to interact wisely with a future peer. Steeped in deeply researched history as well as on-the-ground reporting, this is French at his revelatory best.
About the Author
Howard French is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Prior to joining the Columbia faculty, in 2008, he was a reporter and senior writer for The New York Times, where he worked as a foreign correspondent for more than two decades. During this time, French served as the paper's bureau chief in Shanghai, Tokyo, Abidjan and Miami (covering Central America and the Caribbean) .French's documentary photography has featured in solo and group exhibitions on four continents, and collected by the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum in St. Louis.For more information about his work, please visit his website: howardwfrench.com or follow him on twitter: @hofrench.
