HOT OFF THE PRESSES: THE MARCH PRINT ISSUE. The latest print issue of the Prospect has just come out; be sure to take a look. Our cover story, “America’s China Fantasy,” is by Rise of the Vulcans author James Mann. The fantasy he describes is the notion, adhered to dogmatically by our political and business elites, that opening China economically will eventually liberalize China politically.
Thus, when America’s leading officials and CEOs speak so breezily of integrating China into the international community, listeners should ask: If China remains unchanged [in 30 years], what sort of international community will that be? Will it favor the right to dissent? Will it protect freedom of expression? Or will it simply protect free trade and the right to invest? �
A few years ago, the New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof gave voice to one of the most common American misconceptions about China’s political future. Reflecting on how China had progressed and where it was headed, Kristof wrote, “[Hard-liners] knew that after the Chinese could watch Eddie Murphy, wear tight pink dresses and struggle over what to order at Starbucks, the revolution was finished. No middle class is content with more choices of coffees than of candidates on a ballot.”
Once people are eating at McDonald’s or wearing clothes from The Gap, American writers rush to proclaim that these people are becoming like us, and that their political system is therefore becoming like ours. But will the newly enriched, Starbucks-sipping, condo-buying, car-driving denizens of China’s largest cities in fact become the vanguard for democracy in China? Or is it possible that China’s middle-class elite will either fail to embrace calls for a democratic China or turn out to be a driving force in opposition to democracy?
Also featured in this issue:
- A major profile of John Edwards by our own Ezra Klein;
- A dispatch from Vietnam on the clash between art, commerce, and state repression, by Noy Thrupkaew;
- Charles Taylor‘s contrarian take on Clint Eastwood‘s ascendance to “American Master” status in cinema;
- A review essay by Robert Kuttner on trade, inequality, and the European way; and
- A special package of pieces on work/family issues and policy. Authors include our own Ann Friedman, Joan C. Williams, Heather Boushey, and Tamara Draut.
As free previews, Mark Schmitt‘s rumination on right-wing posturing and our coming post-Iraq hangover, Paul Starr‘s analysis of the political fights (in and outside of Congress) over the war, Julian Zelizer‘s history lesson on congressional action in the Vietnam era, and Paul DiMaggio‘s review of two books on public arts policy are all available to non-subscribers.
But for the rest, you’re going to have to subscribe. And you should! It’s really cheap.
–The Editors
