Chinese Democracy

By Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew J. Chapman

Book Overview

What do the Chinese mean when they say that their political systems is "democratic"? With recent improvements in relations between China and the West, this question is basic to an understanding of the Chinese people in their state. In Chinese Democracy, Andrew Nathan investigates in depth the nature and meaning of "democracy" in China today, beginning with a vivid history of the short-lived Democracy Movement of 1978-1981, when groups of young people in a number of Chinese cities started issuing outspoken publications and putting up posters detailing their complaints and opinions. Nathan constructs--for the first time--a poignant picture of this burst of liberal activity, and at the same time he shows how distinctly Chinese it was and how the roots of its failure lay as much in history as in current political necessity. readers of this book will gain a new perspective on the nature of democracy as the Chinese practice it.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520059336
• ISBN13: 9780520059337
• Release Date: October 1986
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 313 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

it is worth reading, though not excellent

This reviewer is strange...the source of funding should not and does not really determine the approach and conclusion of the scholar. If this person who gives one star is "of Columbia U.", and suppose he is financially supported by "Columbia U.", does this mean that all his opinions are regulated by Columbia University? To be fair, I think this book is worth reading. First, it is lucid and easy to read, second, iit provides a very interesting and historical perspevctive to look at Chinese dissident politics. And you will find how Chinese political dissidents of the early 1980s, i.e. Democracy Wall, thought, talked and acted the same way the older generations of political activists did decades ago...It is through these flashbacks the book unfolds a century long Chinese political culture, as embodied in people's aspiration of democracy, however you define it. Think about Nathan's Peking Politics...He is concerned with Chinese political culture...something underlies the upheavals. As for the resource of funding...as a reader, what matters is the book itself.