Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949 by M. Taylor Fravel
| Author | Sherman Xiaogang Lai |
| Published date | 01 March 2020 |
| Date | 01 March 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020702020914007 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
nutshell, is that “[t]he challenge lies deeper, in the problematic ways the Chinese
economic system has evolved that the rulebook can’t always address” (259).
Besides dissecting the nature of China’s challenge to the multilateral trading
system, the book provides a critical examination of how the US and other stake-
holders have responded to that challenge. Chief among the policy failures was the
lack of coordination between the US, the WTO, and the IMF in dealing with
China’s exchange rate policy (undervaluation of the Chinese currency); the Bush
administration’s reluctance to use China-specific safeguards; and the Trump
administration’s resort to unilateral sanctions outside the WTO framework.
Based on in-depth interviews with insiders, meticulous archival research, and
careful examination of public sources, this book makes an original and timely
contribution to our understanding of the growing schism in the global trading
system resulting from the entry of China into the WTO, as the country’s large
size and state-capitalist model have made it the single most difficult problem for
the system. Extending his findings to policy recommendations, Blustein calls for
the US and others to develop new and imaginative ways to modify China’s trade
practices. One option he supports comes from Jennifer Hillman, a former judge on
the WTO’s Appellate Body, and involves “a big, bold, comprehensive case at the
WTO” against China for violating the overall intent of the WTO’s rules (260). He
urges the US to work with like-minded allies and confront China with WTO-
compatible strategies. Otherwise, the schism in the international trading system
will only grow, bringing serious costs to all.
This book deals with many economic and legal matters, which are often com-
plicated and sometimes technical. However, with his superb writing skills, Blustein
has managed to explain these issues in ways that are clear and easy to follow. The
personal anecdotes about key figures and insider accounts of secret meetings and
conversations add to the fun of reading this highly informative book.
M. Taylor Fravel
Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949
Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 2019, 396 pp.:
ISBN: 978-0-6911-5213-4, US$35.00 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Sherman Xiaogang Lai (laix@queensu.ca), Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario,
Canada
Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong, two giants of twentieth-century China, would be
grateful to Fravel if they were alive to read his book. The book begins with Deng’s
key remark about “Active Defense” in a seminar on China’s future military strat-
egy in 1980, which would turn out to be the label of China’s military strategy.
Mao, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the rev-
olutionary military strategy that brought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to
power, would be delighted to learn that Fravel traces the origin of the concept of
active defence back to the early 1930s, when Mao and his colleagues fell into
quarrels over options of strategy to defend their base areas in southern China
114 International Journal 75(1)
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