On China
(Sprache: Englisch)
The American statesman turns for the first time at book length to the country whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. Examining how China has approached strategy throughout its history, he reflects on the consequences for the 21st century world.
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The American statesman turns for the first time at book length to the country whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. Examining how China has approached strategy throughout its history, he reflects on the consequences for the 21st century world.
Klappentext zu „On China “
"Fascinating, shrewd . . . The book deftly traces the rhythms and patterns of Chinese history." Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesIn this sweeping and insightful history, Henry Kissinger turns for the first time at book length to a country he has known intimately for decades and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. On China illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal events as the initial encounters between China and tight line modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, and Richard Nixon s historic trip to Beijing. With a new final chapter on the emerging superpower s twenty-first-century role in global politics and economics, On China provides historical perspective on Chinese foreign affairs from one of the premier statesmen of our time.
Lese-Probe zu „On China “
Chapter 1
The Singularity of China
SOCIETIES AND NATIONS tend to think of themselves as eternal. They also cherish a tale of their origin. A special feature of Chi-nese civilization is that it seems to have no beginning. It appears in history less as a conventional nation-state than a permanent natural phenomenon. In the tale of the Yellow Emperor, revered by many Chinese as the legendary founding ruler, China seems already to exist. When the Yellow Emperor appears in myth, Chinese civilization has fallen into chaos. Competing princes harass each other and the people, yet an enfeebled ruler fails to maintain order. Levying an army, the new hero pacifies the realm and is acclaimed as emperor.1
The Yellow Emperor has gone down in history as a founding hero; yet in the founding myth, he is reestablishing, not creating, an empire. China predated him; it strides into the historical consciousness as an established state requiring only restoration, not creation. This paradox of Chinese history recurs with the ancient sage Confucius: again, he is seen as the founder of a culture although he stressed that he had invented nothing, that he was merely trying to reinvigorate the prin- ciples of harmony which had once existed in the golden age but had been lost in Confucius s own era of political chaos.
Reflecting on the paradox of China s origins, the nineteenth-century missionary and traveler, the Abbé Régis-Evariste Huc, observed:
Chinese civilization originates in an antiquity so remote that we vainly endeavor to discover its commencement. There are no traces of the state of infancy among this people. This is a very peculiar fact respecting China. We are accustomed in the history of nations to find some well-defined point of depar- ture, and the historic documents, traditions, and monuments that remain to us generally permit us to follow, almost step by step, the progress of civilization, to be present
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at its birth, to watch its development, its onward march, and in many cases, its subsequent decay and fall. But it is not thus with the Chi- nese. They seem to have been always living in the same stage of advancement as in the present day; and the data of antiquity are such as to confirm that opinion.2
When Chinese written characters first evolved, during the Shang Dynasty in the second millennium B.C., ancient Egypt was at the height of its glory. The great city-states of classical Greece had not yet emerged, and Rome was millennia away. Yet the direct descendant of the Shang writing system is still used by well over a billion people today. Chinese today can understand inscriptions written in the age of Confucius; con- temporary Chinese books and conversations are enriched by centuries- old aphorisms citing ancient battles and court intrigues.
At the same time, Chinese history featured many periods of civil war, interregnum, and chaos. After each collapse, the Chinese state reconstituted itself as if by some immutable law of nature. At each stage, a new uniting figure emerged, following essentially the prece- dent of the Yellow Emperor, to subdue his rivals and reunify China (and sometimes enlarge its bounds). The famous opening of The Ro- mance of the Three Kingdoms, a fourteenth-century epic novel treasured by centuries of Chinese (including Mao, who is said to have pored over it almost obsessively in his youth), evokes this continuous rhythm: The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has
ever been. 3 Each period of disunity was viewed as an aberration. Each new dynasty reached back to the previous dynasty s principles of gov- ernance in order to reestablish continuity. The fundamental precepts of Chinese culture endured, tested by the strain of periodic calamity.
Before the seminal event of Chin
When Chinese written characters first evolved, during the Shang Dynasty in the second millennium B.C., ancient Egypt was at the height of its glory. The great city-states of classical Greece had not yet emerged, and Rome was millennia away. Yet the direct descendant of the Shang writing system is still used by well over a billion people today. Chinese today can understand inscriptions written in the age of Confucius; con- temporary Chinese books and conversations are enriched by centuries- old aphorisms citing ancient battles and court intrigues.
At the same time, Chinese history featured many periods of civil war, interregnum, and chaos. After each collapse, the Chinese state reconstituted itself as if by some immutable law of nature. At each stage, a new uniting figure emerged, following essentially the prece- dent of the Yellow Emperor, to subdue his rivals and reunify China (and sometimes enlarge its bounds). The famous opening of The Ro- mance of the Three Kingdoms, a fourteenth-century epic novel treasured by centuries of Chinese (including Mao, who is said to have pored over it almost obsessively in his youth), evokes this continuous rhythm: The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has
ever been. 3 Each period of disunity was viewed as an aberration. Each new dynasty reached back to the previous dynasty s principles of gov- ernance in order to reestablish continuity. The fundamental precepts of Chinese culture endured, tested by the strain of periodic calamity.
Before the seminal event of Chin
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Autoren-Porträt von Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger served as national security advisor and then secretary of state under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and has advised many other American presidents on foreign policy. He received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Medal of Liberty, among other awards. He is the author of numerous books and articles on foreign policy and diplomacy and is currently the chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc., an international consulting firm.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Henry Kissinger
- 2011, XVIII, 608 Seiten, Maße: 16,5 x 23,9 cm, Gebunden, Englisch
- Verlag: Penguin US
- ISBN-10: 1594202710
- ISBN-13: 9781594202711
- Erscheinungsdatum: 10.05.2011
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Fascinating, shrewd . . . [The book s] portrait of China is informed by Mr. Kissinger s intimate firsthand knowledge of several generations of Chinese leaders. The book deftly traces the rhythms and patterns in Chinese history . . . even as it explicates the philosophical differences that separate it from the United States. Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesNobody living can claim greater credit than Mr. Kissinger for America's 1971 opening to Beijing, after more than two decades of estrangement, and for China's subsequent opening to the world. So it's fitting that Mr. Kissinger has now written On China, a fluent, fascinating . . . book that is part history, part memoir and above all an examination of the premises, methods and aims of Chinese foreign policy. The Wall Street Journal
Fascinating . . . In On China, statesman Henry Kissinger draws on historical records and 40 years of direct interaction with four generations of Chinese leaders to analyze the link between China s ancient past and its present day trajectory. In doing so, the man who helped shape modern East-West relations presents an often unsettling, occasionally hopeful and always compelling accounting of what we re up against. The Chicago Sun-Times
Fascinating . . . No living American has played a more important role than Henry Kissinger, the former national security adviser and secretary of state, in bringing about the historic rapprochement between the United States and China. . . . [Kissinger] draw[s] deep insights into China's traumatic encounter with much stronger Western powers. The San Francisco Chronicle
On China, Kissinger's 13th book, blends an incisive strategic analysis of the moves and countermoves of China, the United States and the former Soviet Union with telling vignettes about his meetings with Chinese Communist Party leaders . . . entertaining. The Los Angeles
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Times
No one can lay claim to so much influence on the shaping of foreign policy over the past 50 years as Henry Kissinger. The Financial Times
From the eminent elder statesman, an astute appraisal on Chinese diplomacy from ancient times to the fraught present strategic trust with the United States. Former Secretary of State Kissinger brings his considerable scholarly knowledge and professional expertise to this chronicle of the complicated evolution and precarious future of Chinese diplomacy with the West. . . . Sage words and critical perspective lent by a significant participant in historical events. Kirkus Reviews
No one can lay claim to so much influence on the shaping of foreign policy over the past 50 years as Henry Kissinger. The Financial Times
From the eminent elder statesman, an astute appraisal on Chinese diplomacy from ancient times to the fraught present strategic trust with the United States. Former Secretary of State Kissinger brings his considerable scholarly knowledge and professional expertise to this chronicle of the complicated evolution and precarious future of Chinese diplomacy with the West. . . . Sage words and critical perspective lent by a significant participant in historical events. Kirkus Reviews
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