• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Hidden Harmonies China Blog

Hidden Harmonies China Blog

As China Re-Awakens, Finding New Harmonies in a Brave New World...

  • About Us
  • China Charities
  • FAQ
    • Terms of Service
  • Recommended Readings

Has China Won by Kishore Mahbubani

June 13, 2020 by N.M.Cheung 1 Comment

There are many China experts talking about China, but most do not really understand China. Kishore Mahbubani is one of the few I would like to recommend who can talk about China with some understanding. His most recent book “Has China Won” generate quite a stir in Western academic circles and there were a few debates with other experts you can access in YouTube. He is a retired Singaporean diploma and was head of delegation to UN.
As you can see from the title he thinks China is winning the war with West and analyzing the event before the Corvid pandemic, and the recent conversations and debates he further accentuate China’s advantage versus West. He is generally friendly with China although critical in the perspective of liberal thinkers in general. He agrees with Professor Zhang Weiwei and consider China from the perspective as a civilization with more than 2,000 years of unbroken history and various philosophies shaping the present course rather than the normal critics as authoritarian or even Marxism.
Though he thinks China made a mistake in overplaying her hand and being arrogant and triggering the attacks by Trump Administration rather than continue to play Deng’s strategy of hiding her strength. And the fact of alienating the U.S. business community and causing overwhelming negative reaction from U.S. populace. I think he is wrong in that analysis as negative reaction was inevitable as China climb the ranks from way down to near the top. The Bush administration was ready to cut down China to her size as the spy plane incident developed, but was sideswiped by 9/11 and Bin Laden. Obama was ready to encircle China with Pacific Rim agreement and was cancelled by ignorant Trump. Islamic terrorism although damaging in Xinjiang did gave China 15 more years of breathing room with U.S. pressure and sanctions as Huawei and China is now on semiconductors.
Professor Mahbubani is correct on China’s defensive nature and diplomatic policy. He is too optimistic on whether West can rise to China’s challenge and he is rare among the Western experts being seeing China clearly.

Filed Under: Book Review, culture, Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Julian says

    March 10, 2021 at 12:25 pm

    I’ve just found your site looking for reasoned and positive comments on China. I bought this book a couple of months ago hoping for a non-Western but balanced view. I was considerably disappointed – the author seems to spend half a chapter regurgitating the Washington concensus then the rest mildly suggesting it might be wrong.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • The TikTok Ban That Failed. This Ban Is Not Really About ‘National Security’ Rather It Is About Greed And Control.
  • 大山的女兒–Daughter of the Mountain
  • No, the Chinese does not express glee over Shinzo Abe’s assassination and how western propaganda got it wrong about what Chinese thinks of Abe
  • The Overt Politicization of the Origins of Covid-19
  • The U.S. Loves Wars…

Recent Comments

  • Hengxin on 大山的女兒–Daughter of the Mountain
  • Hompuso on Short Note on Media Disinformation: No, No, No… CIA is not Impersonating Others in Hacking Others … There is just not Proof!
  • Abraham on The Overt Politicization of the Origins of Covid-19
  • purislot on (Letter) Web search for Tiananmen not censored, but do people care?
  • hanhan on 且谈1989年的天安门事件

Tag Cloud

america Beijing censorship China china-u.s. relations coronavirus corruption culture dalai lama defamation againt Chinese democracy earthquake economy education Environment featured freedom freedom of speech Google government history hong kong human rights humor india internet japan media media bias nationalism olympics politics propaganda racism reform riot rule of law sino-u.s. relations sixfour South China Seas taiwan tiananmen tibet U.S. China Relations xinjiang

Archives

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Blogroll

  • China Dialogue
  • China in Africa: The Real Story by Deborah Brautigam
  • Chinese Portal
  • ESWN (東南西北)
  • Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
  • Fool's Mountain (sibling blog)
  • iLook China
  • Moon of Shanghai
  • Outcast Journalism
  • Professor Ann Lee
  • Sino Platonic
  • The Anti-Empire Report

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in