China's Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to the Information Age 1st Edition

The premise, basically: the inseparable role of military in Chinese political & economic circles and how the technological considerations required primarily for defence have contributed to the overall public policy in China and what they mean now for China's modern clout in dealing with U.S. export barriers, the WTO, forces of globalization and the nation's economic & military modernization.Feigenbaum's exploration is instructive, for it demonstrates in stark relief three facts about China's strategic posture that are often missed: its foreign policy in many cases is driven by domestic weaknesses; its increasing nervousness about internal stability (perhaps typified by the recent SARS scourge or the perpetual Fa Lun Gong); and its growing sophistication in the use of international cooperation, not simply military and police coercion, to work with domestic pressures on governance.Strategists would do well to take notice because China's experience for the last half a century in Central Asia reveals much about its strengths, weaknesses and strategies in an era of American pre-eminence. Domestically, it lays bare the limits of the coercive power of the Chinese regime. Externally, it reveals just how creative Beijing's diplomacy can be. And strategically, it shows that China can nimbly -- and successfully -- appeal to common challenges as the basis for cooperation with countries that might normally see it as a potential threat.Techno-Warriors is indeed a multidimensional book traversing defence, technology, economics and governance, but somewhat lacking (imho) in a coherent effort to string together all these different pontifications into a vision for the future of how Feigenbaum believes China will handle the issues he sets out to discuss.A similar theme has also been addressed in "The New Chinese Empire" -- a book that encompasses the last 2000 years of Chinese history and how the posturings of several governments of the past in fact provide a common underpinning for Chinese governance in the present: thriving on weaknesses.A reading of both these books in succession has left me thinking from a very fresh perspective about modern Chinese policy, particularly in contrast to the hackneyed economic odes found in popular media.You are quite likely to find this a thoughtful, thought-provoking read, despite the demanding intellectual summons (which I take off one star for).