Biwu Zhang holds a 2002 PhD in political science from Ohio State University and now teaches in the School of International Relations at Xiamen University. His valuable 2012 book Chinese Perceptions of the U.S. argues that Americans have devoted much attention to assessing China's growing capabilities, but less attention to assessing China's likely intentions. Is the PRC a status quo power adapting to a US-dominated international order, or a revisionist power threatening that order? To answer this question, Zhang explores general PRC images of the US, specific PRC perceptions of how the US affects PRC national interests, and specific PRC perceptions of key national characteristics of the US. Zhang surveys 675 articles – mostly from the 1990s – from six diverse major PRC academic journals. He selects subsets of those articles that treat particular topics, emphasizing common denominators mostly shared within those subsets, but noting shifts in views from the early to late 1990s.
The resulting book provides a unique analysis of 1990s PRC academic views of the US, based on much meticulous work, presented in clear English, with a flair for succinct characterizations of key analytical positions in both Chinese and Western literatures. Zhang writes concisely but intricately. Thus he carefully specifies the inferential schemas guiding his judgments, the explanatory dynamics underlying Chinese analyses, and the additive logic relating specific PRC perceptions to general PRC images. An introductory chapter provides a good short review of Western literature on the PRC's foreign policy motivations. Then a pointed methodological chapter (two) explores Western literature on how to assess such motivations through PRC images and perceptions of the US. The final chapter (eight) returns to general national images, updating previous Western literature by concluding that, in 1990s PRC academic eyes, the US was mostly either a partner, model, or imperialist. Zhang argues that the partner image and resulting cooperation could predominate in future Sino-American relations.
On specific Chinese perceptions of how the US affects PRC national interests, Zhang concludes that, on balance, 1990s Chinese articles more often portrayed the US as providing opportunities than as posing threats (chapters three and four). Zhang also concludes that, while many 1990s' Chinese articles noted some signs of American decline, most assumed that the US will remain the strongest power in the world until well into the 21st century, with largely benign effects on China and the world (chapter five). At least as reflected in academic articles, Zhang finds that the resulting PRC intentions are likely largely to be accommodation of the US, mostly to preserve a peaceful international environment for China's economic development. Again, Zhang believes that such PRC accommodation opens the possibility for constructive partnership between the PRC and US.
On specific Chinese perceptions of American national characteristics, Zhang finds 1990s views on balance more favourable than those in the relatively critical 1980s. Moreover, many of the unfavourable views in the 1990s were not so much rejections of the American model as either complaints that America does not sufficiently live up to its own ideals or laments that China is not yet ready to copy promising American practices. Here a rich chapter (six) on the American economy finds that the US's increasing prosperity in the 1990s produced increasingly favourable Chinese assessments of American markets and their macro-economic management. Another rich chapter (seven) on domestic American politics concludes that, on balance, Chinese articles in the 1990s found more good than bad along such basic dimensions of American democracy as what determines election outcomes (voters more than money), whose interests American politics serves (everyone, not just “the rich”) and whether the distinctively American system of checks and balances works or not (it slows decisions, but improves their quality). Zhang concludes that, by the 1990s, positive views of the US added up to a model for the PRC to emulate.
All of this leaves little about which to complain. Nevertheless, the book's major strengths do entail minor weaknesses. Zhang's focus on underlying consensus across articles firmly grounds his generalizations while permitting ample illustration of diverse opinions. However, Zhang chooses not to probe the bases of that diversity – personal, institutional or ideological. For example, Zhang astutely notes that the contrast between 1980s criticism of Reagan prosperity and 1990s praise of Clinton prosperity probably resulted more from change in Chinese attitudes than from any difference in American economic performance (p. 147). He does not note that the Party's 1992 endorsement of a “socialist market economy” strongly legitimated academic approval of market economics. Western readers may regret the lack of attention to context. Nevertheless, they will still appreciate such systematic analysis of so many Chinese articles on such an important subject.
