Adriatic by Robert D. Kaplan

Two-thirds through the book, Robert Kaplan worries that this book fits in no category: "It is not military strategy, political  science, original archival history, conventional long-form journalism, traditional travel writing, memoir, or literary criticism" (p.237). He's right about that, although it has elements of all or most of the above. Kaplan, a renowned geopolitical analyst, has written 20 books of which I have read about half a dozen before this one. It is thus clear that I like his writing and his perspective on contemporary affairs. His work is always anchored in history and geography, which gives it more depth than most others. (It has to be said that many academic geographers are highly critical of Kaplan's analysis, judging him to be something of a geographical determinist and of a somewhat conservative bent; I do not subscribe to this view and, on the contrary, appreciate Kaplan's traditional approach to political geography.)

This book was, however, a harder read than any of the others that I have read. Kaplan has a fascination with history that takes him way back in time to Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. He is also deeply interested in architecture and culture, including religion. Consequently, the early parts of the book, focusing on Trieste and Venice in Italy, are rather heavy, with much emphasis on the above aspects. Throughout the book, he expends much effort to pondering the relationship between the past powers (the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, Venice...) and the influences of Catholism, Eastern Orthodoxism and Islam. There is also an extraordinary amount of introspection. 

At least to me, the book gets more interesting as the author travels down the eastern Adriatic coast, from Slovenia through Croatia, Montenegro and Albania ending up on the island of Corfu. In these parts, he talks more to people--historians and other academics, politicians, journalists and others--which adds much needed color and points of view bringing the analysis to recent history and the present. Kaplan, in my view, is in his own element when discussing the geopolitics of the region. I personally learned a lot about the history of the Adriatic and especially the Balkans.

In the final part, Kaplan ponders the future of Europe, not in the long term but what comes next and which way it will develop. He also discusses the state of nation states and the tensions between multiculturalism (as today experienced in cities), identity, and the nationalist and populist instincts that currently prevail. These are thoughtful passages.

Excursion to the Western Mountains

[In September 2019 I attended the annual Asian Evaluation Week in Kunming, Yunnan. In the late-1990s when I was with the United Nations University based in Tokyo, I had a joint project in Yunnan with the Kunming Institute of Botany, which allowed me to visit Kunming and travel around the beautiful province of Yunnan on several occasions. This was my first time back in 21 years. Just earlier this week, I visited my then collaborators with whom I have kept in touch through all these years, Guo Huijun and Liang Luohui. Guo who was a young promising researcher when we worked together has last year been appointed President of the Southwestern Forestry University, a major research university with 22,000 students. Liang, now affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences was the one who introduced me to Yuanmei Jiao.]

Huating Temple

It was a foggy morning and there was a palpable threat of rain in the air when Zhijuan picked us up from the hotel in southwest of Kunming. Miki and I were ready for a short excursion to the hills just 12 km outside of town. Zhijuan Zeng was a graduate student of geography at Yunnan Normal University. Her professor, Yuanmei Jiao, had assigned her to accompany the foreign visitors on this trip. Dismissing our praise for her hospitality and kindness, Yuanmei assured us that the day trip would be good for Zhijuan’s English practice. (Zhijuan’s presence would definitely make the trip easier. A year ago, having attended the same annual meeting in Chengdu, my friend Nanthi and I took another mountain and temple tour by ourselves. We managed well, despite the language barrier.)

Zhijuan, Miki and I took a taxi to the foot of Xi Shan (西山) or Western Mountains. Driving through the town, gave a clear indication of how the city has grown both vertically and horizontally in the intervening two decades I have been away. Thankfully, it still has retained much of its charm, thanks largely to the genuinely welcoming people.

When we reached the base of the mountain, we switched to a bus that would take us further up. The Xi Shan is a protected area and a popular recreation spot for locals because of the clean air and beautiful scenery. My friend Liang, a Yunnan native, says that he comes here at least once a month when he needs some rest for his soul. We first got off the bus at a temple halfway up. Huating is a Buddhist temple with a history that reaches back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). The temple itself was first established in 1320 but it got its name – Huating – only in 1441 by Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The temple, having been built of wood, suffered several calamities during its history but was always reconstructed. This is a common practice with temples in East Asia and the fact that something has been destroyed and rebuilt many times over the centuries does nothing to reduce its historical value. The current Huating Temple stems from the 1920s. Huating is a National Key Buddhist Temple according to the Chinese government.

The temple consists of two main halls, the Four Heavenly Kings Hall and the Mahavira Hall. When you enter the Four Heavenly Kings Hall, you walk in between large statues of Heng and Ha, two ancient Shang Dynasty generals in Chinese legend, before reaching the statues of Buddha and the bodhisattva Skanda (guardian of Buddhist monasteries) at the center.

Zhijuan explores Huating grounds

Although not particularly large, the Huating is very beautiful and has a peaceful atmosphere. Temple gardens are often important repositories of local biodiversity, as the groves have been spared from cutting down for long periods. There were a few other visitors, all Chinese. Two of the women stopped to pray at the Buddha.

Having spent a good hour admiring the Huating and soaking in its peacefulness, we returned to the roadside to wait for another bus to take us further up the hill. We were lucky as the rain never came. In fact, from time to time the sun would peek out from between the clouds.

We got off at the final stop of where the entrance to the mountain peak was located. Here there were considerably more people but, again, no other foreigners in sight. Soon after the gates, the path started to climb. The famous Longmen Grottoes have been carved into the hillside during a 72-year period starting in 1782 during Qing Dynasty. The grottoes are connected by narrow stone-paved paths and extremely steep steps. I soon started to feel the exercise in my lungs. We were between 2,250 and 2,300 meters above sea level and the thin air together with the strain of the climb were getting to me. Even Miki confessed that he was feeling tired. Although I had been in Kunming for a week and the city itself lies at 1,800 meters’ altitude, I hadn’t gotten accustomed to the elevation. This being a weekday, there were lots of old people on the path. I admired their stamina.

Taking the excuse of studying some historical construct or admiring the view, I rested at every level place during the climb. The 23-year-old Zhijuan didn’t seem to grasp that we were getting rather exhausted but she accepted the frequent stops. Having said that, the views from the hill down to Dianchi Lake and beyond to the city were quite stunning. The air was still rather misty, which limited the visibility. Still, in the balance, I was pleased that the sun wasn’t blaring upon us from a cloudless sky.

The hillsides were extremely steep and at times the path passed through grottoes so low that I had to crouch to get through. The workers who constructed the trail 250 years ago clearly were smaller than I. 

Dianchi Lake with Kunming City in the distance

We eventually reached the destination: the Dragon Gate complex resting on a hillside so steep that the drop is absolutely vertical to the lake shore. Having spent some time admiring the place and taking photographs of each other with the view, just like all the local tourists, it was time to head back. The way down was easier on the lungs, but walking down the narrow stone steps that were moist as a result of the earlier fog, was hard on the legs as one had to tense the thigh muscles constantly in order not to roll down the hill.

The excursion was short but refreshing. Back in the city, we still had daylight to enjoy a leisurely walk around the beautiful Cuihu park with its lakes and waterways covered with lotus waterlilies. Unfortunately, the flowering season was over and only a few of the plants still bore gorgeous flowers. I personally was most happy to be walking on flat land.

Improving International Development Evaluation through Geospatial Data Analysis

This paper on Improving International Development Evaluation through Geospatial Data and Analysis (authors: Malte Lech, Juha Uitto, Sven Harten, Geeta Batra and Anupam Anand) was just published in the International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research.

Ordos: Not quite a ghost town

Ordos, in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, has been called a ‘ghost town’ (see for example Wade Shepard’s 2017 article in Forbes magazine, entitled “China’s Most Infamous ‘Ghost City’ Is Rising from the Desert”). There’s a reason for that; the city is not exactly packed with life. Still the depiction may be unfair. I spent a week there last autumn and found the place to be both intriguing and challenging. It surely is impressive, with its high rises, wide avenues, monumental squares and parks. When I landed at the shiny new airport in the middle of the night, disembarking from an Air China flight from Beijing, the entry was very smooth. There were few people at the airport and a taxi was waiting. We headed off on a road to near total darkness soon to arrive at a brightly lit toll gate with extravagant decorations shining in the night. Then off we went on a drive that felt like an eternity on an empty eight-lane highway, mostly unlit, until we hit the outskirts of the city. I was sharing the ride with an American lady whom we dropped off first at a massive Howard Johnson establishment (I didn’t know these motels came in such sizes) before driving another 5 minutes to reach my hotel, Tieniu, across a large intersection in the middle of the city. In the lobby I was met by a young man dressed in a pale blue uniform explaining the system to me: where the restaurants were, at what time meals were served, etc.; and taking me to my 9^th floor room. The room was comfortable, overlooking the intersection and a park behind it, and after a while I settled into the standard hotel bed.

Dongsheng dawn

The morning dawned beautiful. After only a few hours of sleep I woke up and looked out over the intersection and the park. The moon shone over the slowly brightening sky. It was quiet and no movement could be seen. Around 7 am the city started to wake up and loud music with a disco beat started blaring from the park. Presumably it was played to prepare the city’s denizens for another productive day; most likely there were people in the park engaging in rhythmic morning exercises but I couldn’t see it from my room.

The young man in blue from last night, I would find out, belonged to a group of hundreds of student volunteers who had been mobilized to guide the thousands of foreigners who had gathered in town for the 13^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP13) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Ordos was hosting the biannual event in its large new Convention Center, apparently one of the first such international gatherings in town. The student guides were an essential part of the success, as the locals certainly were not well equipped to deal with the invasion. While street signs were generally in three scripts – Chinese, Mongolian and Western – they would not be very helpful. Similarly, the ability of the local people to communicate in English was virtually non-existent. Even at the reception of this 4-star hotel, the staff lacked even a rudimentary knowledge of basic English words.

I walked out of the hotel and turned left on what appeared to be a commercial street. The air was dry 

Dongsheng

and the sun shone brightly. There were a few people on the street but nothing that could be described a crowd. After all it was a Saturday. I found an ATM and tried each and every one of my credit and debit cards for some cash, but to no avail. With no luck at the ATM, I wondered into a large shopping complex, walked down the stairs and entered. The shops were open but the place was virtually deserted. It seemed to me that most of the establishments sold clothes and many appeared to focus on fashionable street wear. I entered a shop that sold drinks and was met by a very friendly woman eager to help. She smiled broadly and despite the lack of a common language we managed to select something for me to drink right away as well as some interesting looking Baijiu for a later occasion. As I had no cash, she indicated credit cards would be just fine. She whipped out a credit card machine but it would not accept any of my cards. She fished out another one from a cupboard, a bulky old-fashioned item, dusted it off and plugged it into a wall outlet. Again, the result was the same. After some 10 minutes we both gave up and I walked out without my drinks while the nice lady looked distressed.

I returned to the hotel and asked the group of volunteers in their pale blue outfits about how to get to the Convention Center. A helpful young lady explained that there was a bus that would go straight there and that I wouldn’t have to pay the fare. Apparently, there was a deal that the foreign delegates would ride free; having us understand the payment system and give the right amount of money was clearly more trouble than it was worth. I would just have to walk across the street and wait for bus number 3. Crossing the road was no problem as there was virtually no traffic, so I positioned myself on the bus stop and started to wait.

There were a couple of other people who ogled me with curiosity. Soon two teenage girls approached me. One of them ventured a hesitant ‘hello’ and plenty of giggles followed when I responded in the same way. That was the extent of our mutual vocabulary, but the girls indicated that they wanted to have photographs with me. We asked the other people waiting at the bus stop to take the photos.

Soon bus number 3 arrived and I boarded it. The driver welcomed me with a smile. There was one other passenger, a middle-aged lady who was equally welcoming and said something to me in Chinese. This turned out to be a regular city bus. I placed myself next to an open window, as the day was getting warm and I could welcome the breeze. The bus moved at an extraordinarily slow pace through the vast deserted streets. At a later stop, a young man in the pale blue uniform boarded and the friendly lady beckoned him over. The volunteer confirmed that I was on the right bus and that I should just have to wait until we reached the Convention Center stop; I would not be able to miss it. Soon the bus left the city and entered an eight-lane highway, presumably the same my taxi had used last night. The highway was new and looked very impressive. There was very little traffic. Some cars cruised smoothly past us, while we encountered a few other buses and trucks. The landscape around us, now that I could see it, was open and the blue sky appeared high. Everywhere there were tree plantations with saplings in straight rows sticking out of the dry soil. The landforms were rolling hills. Afforesting the bare hills was obviously an official priority. There was a river and a reservoir with large Chinese letters in bright red inscribed on the adjacent hillside. Perhaps they declared some environmental goal but I could not be certain. The bus crept along the fancy highway at most 50 km/h. The speed limit said 100 km/h, or 80 in areas of intersections. When the road moved uphill, our speed slowed to a crawl. I was concerned that the engine would die and we would be deserted in the middle of an empty stretch with the scorching sun upon us in the merciless sky.

Reservoir between Dongsheng and Kangbashi

The highway passed through empty areas with only neat afforestation projects on both sides. In some places they were irrigated by water trucks. There were old workers in neon vests ambling around the center plantations that separated the traffic going in opposite directions. Occasionally we would see high rise developments that looked empty. Finally, we left the highway and entered another urban area: the Kangbashi New District. The city roads were wide with three lanes going in each direction. On the roadsides there were monuments of large horses – this was Inner Mongolia where horses have played a central part in the culture since the times of the Genghis Khan – and parks with fountains sparing no amount of water in this dry land. We reached the Convention Center stop and I disembarked. The bus ride had taken 70 minutes. I had enjoyed the scenery and the few people on the bus, including the driver, had been very hospitable but I decided I would invest in a taxi ride from now on for the coming week. This would cut the travel time by half.

Convention Center in Kangbashi

The Convention Center occupied large grounds and was very pleasant. The first thing a visitor saw was a display of plant art, dominated by a 7-8 meter tall horse flanked by other Mongolian items. There was a booth selling coffee and cold drinks, as well as other utility booths, before one entered the main building. On the left there was a massive tent that served as the dining area where one could purchase a large variety of Chinese, Western, vegetarian and halal foods (there are lots of Muslims in northwestern China). I spent the rest of the day – and several more to come – in the conference. We also conducted a field visit to environmental projects funded, amongst others, by the Global Environment Facility. But the evenings I would spend in Dongsheng, mostly by myself as my colleagues were all lodged in Kangbashi.

By now I had figured out how these two centers hang together (and here I rely in particular on an article by the geographer Max Woodworth published in the journal Cities in 2015). Located in the valley of the Yellow River, Ordos has historically been a poor area in China, plagued by its dry climate (with an average annual rainfall of only 341 mm) and poor agricultural land. In the early-2000s, however, the town experienced a significant boom period due to exploitation of its abundant natural resources – notably coal and gas, which also experienced high prices at that period. As a consequence, Ordos was dubbed as “China’s new coal capital”: investment poured in and people’s incomes rose rapidly. Dongsheng was the town that had previously formed the urban core of Ordos. In 2001, Ordos Municipality was founded around Dongsheng and a new center, the Kangbashi New District, was established about 25 km north of Dongsheng to form this bi-centered conglomerate. The two centers and other subcenters in between were connected by the fancy new highways that I had now traveled on.  Kangbashi was a planned center with administrative offices, cultural facilities and residential areas – and the Convention Center – popping up at a rapid succession. Kangbashi New District was inaugurated in 2006. Apart from the fine new infrastructure, there was a major greening effort that included planting 200,000 trees – I had observed this on my first trip from Dongsheng to Kangbashi.

The Ordos Performing Arts Center & Ordos Cultural Center

In the decade from 2000 to 2010, the Ordos municipality’s population increased by 39% as some

417,000 people moved in, partly lured by opportunities in the boom town, partly as part of official mass location of entire villages from the ecologically fragile semi-arid areas to the city. Then around 2011, the bubble burst, as the inflated real estate market collapsed simultaneously with a dip in coal prices. Since 2012, two-thirds of the coal mines in Ordos have scaled back or closed down. Up to 200,000 people left Ordos municipality in the next couple of years, mostly recent migrants whose hopes for a better urban life didn’t materialize, thus contributing to the image of a ghost town. While Dongsheng still has some 580,000 inhabitants, Kangbashi’s population is a modest 30,000 with a 70% vacancy rate in the residential developments.

Dongsheng by night

At nighttime, all public buildings and monuments in both Kangbashi and Dongsheng were brightly lit with colorful lights that shifted and flashed forming impressive displays of lightshows. All of the electricity would be provided by coalfired power plants implanted in the surrounding desert. From my hotel room I could see a fountain sprouting water high up in the air in different formations illuminated with spotlights constantly changing colors. The high rise next door had an entire wall decorated with red and blue lights in the pattern of flowing water. Every few minutes a car would pass on the avenues below.

When I had some free time on a Sunday, I walked over to the park. At its center was an artificial lake

The park in Dongsheng

and some children were playing in the water. There was a small temple and some people were walking leisurely around the pond. The park was a well-kept oasis surrounded by the skyscrapers of Donsheng. In fact, I noticed several municipal workers quietly toiling in the gardens and maintaining the paths.

One of the first evenings I returned to the hotel hungry and wanted to have dinner. It was about 8:45 pm and I had been informed that the restaurant would be open until 9:30. My arrival caused considerable commotion. The maître d’, an attractive woman in a black uniform with a short skirt and black stockings, literally ran to the dining room and found that all other patrons (if indeed there had been any) had already departed and the staff were busy closing shop. Luckily there would be room service available. With the help of the nice lady I was able to select a meal to be brought to my room. She didn’t speak any English but there was an English menu and I picked a familiar item: Kung Pao Chicken. She also took me to a room that served as their wine cellar where I selected a bottle of local Great Wall red wine (not bad at all). About 20 minutes later the same maître d’ showed up at my door with a waiter carrying the food and wine.

Ms. Zhang

On another night I repeated the procedure, went to the 2^nd floor restaurant reception, negotiated with the lovely maître d’ (by this time I had learned that her name was Zhang) and ordered room service. Mongolian food tends to be heavy on meat and this time my meal was diced beef with onions, leeks and asparagus. It probably was the best meal I had in Ordos. Zhang and a waiter again brought it up to my room. This time she stayed behind for a few minutes and we took selfies with each other. She also showed me some photos on her cell phone.

The selfie theme repeated itself several times during my visit, so rare was the appearance of foreign creatures in these parts. Once when I was returning to Dongsheng from the conference, the taxi driver, a middle-aged man, stopped the taxi, whipped out his cell phone and asked whether he could snap a selfie with me in the back seat. Of course, I had no objections.

One evening as I returned to the hotel I was determined to find somewhere else with a bit of life to sit and enjoy the scenery. I descended to the reception where there were five or six employees behind the counter. I tried to ask about where I could go out for a drink. This drew a blank. Not a single one of the employees understood the word. No worries, soon a young woman in pale blue ran to my rescue. Unfortunately, she was equally lost. I suggested a ‘bar’, but neither was that word familiar to her. But she did have an electronic dictionary and after consulting it for a while, she looked up to me and asked: “So you want to go to a pub?” I said that a pub was close enough and that I would indeed want to go to one. She consulted with the receptionists who still looked lost. I suggested that hotels usually had bars, especially big ones like the Tieniu, but learned that this was not the case in Ordos. We went outside and consulted with two taxi drivers and came to the conclusion that a pub did indeed exist in Dongsheng. So I jumped into the back of the taxi and off we drove into the darkness. I was having second thoughts as the taxi drove through empty avenues further and further away from what I had thought was city center. We passed another smaller hotel in front of which we had to wait as a bus let off a large group of Chinese tourists. We drove across a parking lot and turned onto a street that appeared entirely dark. Lo and behold, the taxi driver curved in front of a building where there indeed was a pub. Hospitable as everyone I had met in Ordos was, the taxi driver got out of the car, walked with me to the establishment and announced my arrival to the staff. I was warmly welcomed as the smiling taxi driver bowed deep and retreated backwards towards his waiting vehicle on the dark deserted street.

The pub

I was ushered to a table. The place had a red theme, wooden tables, and a prominent bar in the middle of the room. There were only two other customers in the establishment, a youngish Western couple chatting over beers at a nearby table. The staff consisted of a man and a woman who served as waiters and another woman on the kitchen side who appeared to be the boss. The man brought me a menu, which had some English and a few pictures. I saw there were a few foreign beers, like Allagash White, but when the waiter suggested the first item on the menu I gladly agreed. Soon I had in front of me a 1.5-liter pitcher of local beer, which would put me back by about $1. I also ordered an item from the menu having first ascertained that it was chicken (I ended up shaking my folded arms as if they were the short wings of a hen and, as that didn’t do the trick, drew a chicken on a napkin; by this time the boss had also emerged from the kitchen and she nodded vigorously in affirmation).

The evening turned very pleasant. Little by little, after 9 pm local kids started to drift into the bar. They all looked relaxed and dressed in jeans or miniskirts in a slightly punkish style. Some carried guitar cases. They ordered beer and chatted. My chicken and beer did the trick and I felt contended. On TV there was a Chinese historical fantasy drama where drop-dead-gorgeous women slashed bad guys with swords. The foreign couple got up and went to the cashier to pay, only to find that their credit cards would not be accepted and they did not have any cash. The boss emerged again from the kitchen and a negotiation ensued. With sign language, the foreigners explained that they lived in a nearby hotel and showed the hotel card. They promised to come back the following day to pay, which I am convinced they would do (they looked very decent). Luckily, I had found a Bank of China branch where I had been able to withdraw cash for the taxi rides and other minor investments, so I had no trouble paying the bill. The nice young lady who was the boss called me a taxi and the male waiter escorted me to the dark empty street when it arrived.

On the following evening after work I returned to the shopping mall next to my hotel. I found the shop where I had tried to purchase drinks on my first day. The same woman was behind the counter and her face lit up when she saw me. She welcomed me warmly like an old friend and quickly ran to fetch the bottles of local liquor I had failed to purchase the first time around. This time I had cash and we separated thanking each other profusely. Then in the basement where the food stores were located, I found a small café that sold beer. It was weak and warm but wet and it made my day.

Ordos Municipality Government offices, Kangbashi New District

On my last afternoon with all work completed I left the Convention Center in Kangbashi and walked maybe 15 minutes alongside the broad and empty avenues towards Ordos Museum. I passed the Kangbashi police headquarters, a big square building flanked by a red flag behind a bank of colorful flowers. Then the Kangbashi New District municipal offices that were housed in four large blocks with a Genghis Khan themed monument in front.

I crossed the avenue, which was not challenging despite its impressive width because of the sparse

traffic, and entered a vast park – the Genghis Khan Square. The space was wide open and the trees that were there had been planted only recently. The entrance to the park sported a statue of two huge horses standing on their hindlegs. Further in, there were equally large and fanciful statues, including a pair of gigantic Mongolian wrestlers positioned against each other across a square. All of these were very creative and entertaining. I spotted another person in the park, a Chinese man taking photographs of the features.

The park was surrounded by some of the most important buildings in Kangbashi, including the Ordos Performing Arts Center, the Ordos Cultural Center, the Ordos Library and the Ordos Museum. They all had very innovative contemporary architecture. I took a direction diagonally across the park towards the museum, passing a very nice and imaginative patch of flowers with larger than life sheep grazing in the middle.

Ordos Museum

The museum itself was definitely worth a visit. The massive building had an impressive contemporary design like a huge egg laid on a high foundation. It was designed by the Chinese architects MAD and opened in 2011. I walked around it in the relentless afternoon sunshine searching for the main entrance (it turned out that I started circling the edifice in the wrong direction and had to walk around almost all of it to land at the main doors). The moment I arrived, I was greeted by a young lady in the same pale blue uniform as those at my hotel, at the conference site and even on the bus. From now on, I would be passed on from one hostess to the next in a relay that would show me everything in the museum. We started on the first floor with some contemporary art by local artists. Very good, I thought. We then proceeded through prehistoric rooms with life-sized woolly mammoths and dioramas of primitive people engaged in daily chores accompanied by archeological finds, advancing through the history of Inner Mongolia all the way to the Communist revolution (again dioramas, this time with Red Guards guiding the local people), to collections of porcelain (that disappointingly were not from the region but were on loan from some coastal museum). At each floor, the current guide handed me over to a next one. All of them were university students with an English major who had been brought here for the duration of the conference. All were knowledgeable and very kind, but I particularly liked one – a student from Hohhot University not far from Ordos – who had a twinkle in her eye and dropped some subtle, yet very funny remarks regarding the exhibits.

Museum insides

I was genuinely impressed by the museum. Not only were the exhibits very interesting and well done, but the architecture of the building was beautiful. On the inside, sunlight pouring through strategically located windows of different shapes created stunning patterns of light and shadows. I asked the last of the ladies to allow me to wander around for a while by myself. I took the stairs down from the top floor back to the entrance admiring the architecture. On the ground floor, I was greeted by all the ladies who had escorted me and led to the museum store. We also took some photographs with ourselves.

The volunteers in the museum

On my last morning, I got up at 5:30 and had a breakfast of fried rice with egg, vegetables, steamed dumplings, tea and juice. Having finished packing, I took a taxi to the airport. The trip through mostly empty highways took some 45 minutes. The airport is truly beautiful but it, too, was virtually empty. I was the only passenger at that early hour checking into the Air China flight to Beijing. At the check-in counter, I was greeted by one of the pale blue volunteers who helped me to get my boarding pass and directed me to the beautiful lounge where a hostess in a silk uniform with a miniskirt welcomed me. I again was the only customer, until three Chinese fellow travelers entered and ended my peaceful reverie.

I felt surprisingly melancholy about leaving this place.

Back in Mizusawa

Yoko and Nowa in the old part of Mizusawa

July and we’re back in Mizusawa, as regularly as migrating birds, every summer for many years already. This is Yoko’s hometown and I’ve grown to feel it’s mine as well. Nowa has spent most of her summers and some New Year's vacations there too. 

I’ve also watched it change, both economically, socially and geographically. Mizusawa has some history, although it’s short by Japanese standards where history is measured in centuries and millennia: the town was founded in 1889 and made formally into a city in 1954. But by now, Mizusawa is no longer a city in its own right. In 2006 it was merged with the neighboring communities of Esashi, Maesawa, Isawa and Koromogawa to form the new city of Oshu. The former cities (shi) were downgraded to the status of wards (ku) in the newly formed Oshu-shi. It probably made sense in some administrative manner. Life in Mizusawa didn’t change noticeably and the old Mizusawa city hall close to our house was turned into Oshu city hall.

Our house

We are in Iwate prefecture (ken) in the middle of the Tohoku region in the northern part of the main Japanese island of Honshu. Oshu-shi is almost 500 km straight north from Tokyo. It is located in a north-south valley, with the tall mountains of Akita-ken rising to the west. A coastal mountain range separates the area from the Sanriku coast further to the east. This is very lucky as the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of March 11^th, 2011, that destroyed many of the coastal towns, such as Rikuzentakata, Ofunato, Kamaishi and Kesennuma, killed more than 15,000 people, and caused the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, hardly affected Mizusawa’s surroundings. Sure, the massive shakes were felt here strong enough and electricity was cut off for two weeks in parts of the town, but that was the extent of the damage.

Mizusawa was a small town, at least by Japanese standards. It used to have a bit over 60,000 inhabitants when it was put together with its neighbors. It is a center of an agricultural area with expansive tracts of rice paddies, apple orchards and vegetable gardens. Consequently, many of the inhabitants are rural types and the age structure rather old. Although Iwate (like Akita) has plenty of hot springs, the main resort areas – like the famous Hanamaki Onsen – are further north from Mizusawa, in the mountains. Mizusawa did have some things going for it, though, that made it different from some of the other small rural towns. It was an administrative center for the region and it had a big hospital.

Rural outskirts

Small rivers and canals run through the old part of town. Some houses along them are old and somewhat dilapidated but new ones are appearing here and there. The waterways are generally clean and there are fish and crayfish in the main channel. Some beautiful gardens line the creeks.

Urban canals

Interestingly, the town is also host to one of the six International Latitude Observatories, which has for decades brought visiting scholars and scientists to the town from all over the world. All these observatories – in California, Ohio, Maryland, Italy, Turkmenistan and Mizusawa – are located near the 39^o08’ parallel to measure the Earth’s wobble. You can still go for days without seeing another foreigner, but at least people are quite used to seeing my kind of big blond gaijin in town. This summer, there are three American kids enrolled in the Mizusawa elementary school.

The shinkansen station

Oshu-shi lies about halfway between the two largest cities in Tohoku: Sendai (pop. 1.1 million) to the south and Morioka (pop. 297,000) to the north. The main Tohoku shinkansen bullet train track goes through Oshu-shi and makes a stop at the Mizusawa-Esashi station. Some people are surprised that the shinkansen makes a stop at the juncture of these relatively small towns, but there is a logical explanation: Ichiro Ozawa (b. 1942). The perennial opposition leader and powerful politician actually hails from Mizusawa and remains quite popular in these parts. Even we received a congratulatory message from him when we got married at the Komagata shrine here in town (this didn’t please my mother-in-law who was a regional planner in the prefectural government and no fan of Ozawa’s). In a type example of politics of patronage, Mizusawa received a shinkansen stop.

A ceremony at Komagata shrine

There’s a twist to the story, however – a twist that explains some of the later developments in the urban geography of the area. Mizusawa is also on the regular north-south railway line on which the local trains to Morioka and smaller towns in Iwate travel. Naturally, the original plan was to build the Tohoku shinkansen line so that it would take the same route and the bullet trains would stop at around the existing Mizusawa station. The station area at that time was the heart of the city, with a thriving main street containing many shops and restaurants and a couple of hotels. Apparently the chamber of commerce feared that a shinkansen station would disturb their idyll and voted against it. Instead, the shinkansen would stop some kilometers further east, in a relatively unpopulated area between the cities of Mizusawa and Esashi.

How wrong could they have been? What happened was that the area around the new shinkansen station started to develop, as many people preferred to live close to the transportation hub that would take them to Morioka, Sendai and all the way to Tokyo. The area around Mizusawa station declined and shops started closing.

Universe -- A new shopping center

In a parallel development, Mizusawa became much more car-oriented. The old center with its narrow streets was made for walking and biking. Now shopping centers with expansive parking lots were developed on the outskirts of the town. The outer roads turned into strip malls with car dealerships, pachinko parlors with slot machines, chain restaurants and other establishments. The best hotel in town is no longer the Mizusawa Grand on the main station street (where our wedding reception was held) but the MizusawaPlaza Inn to the east from the local train tracks. Full disclosure: Plaza Inn is owned and operated by one of Yoko's best friends, Mami Kikuchi; the girls went to junior high school together. The hotel is very popular as a wedding location and boasts two excellent restaurants: a traditional Japanese restaurant Kikusui; and the Western Quattre Saisons. (Typically of the modesty of the Japanese people, the successful businesswoman Mami who in addition owns other restaurants in Iwate still drives a tiny Suzuki Lapin.)

With Mami and her Lapin

As in so many Japanese towns, there is a fancy multipurpose cultural center in Oshu-shi as well. The Z Hall that contains a large concert hall and hosts a variety of events (and where my brother-in-law Jun works) was also built to the east of the tracks towards Esashi.

There was a time a decade or so ago when it was rather depressing to walk along the main street by the station, as so many of the shops were closed down and very few people would be on the street. A large number of small bars were still operating in the narrow small streets north of the main drag but the evenings tended to feel rather lonely, while younger people drove to the family restaurants in the shopping centers and strip malls. Even the classic Takatoyo fish mongers moved further out.

Jun sings at Urara while Akira tends bar

Then something seems to have happened again and the area no longer feels dead. New shops and cafés have opened around the station, as have big and shiny karaoke joints to compete with the rustic Urara, a karaoke bar run by Yoko and Jun’s aunt Eiko and her husband Akira. One reason may be the development of new housing and opening of a shopping center, Universe, not far from the old center a stone’s throw from our house. The son of the owner of a classic coffee shop, Rengaya, a couple of years ago opened a stylish yet cozy café called Jazzrise, which boasts a great collection of jazz vinyls. It has to be said, though, that the collection is no match to that in Ray Brown, a jazz bar just a couple of blocks away from our house, which Yoko’s uncle Toshikatsu, a keen jazz man, introduced me to.

The old station area has recovered somewhat

Apart from the scientists at the Observatory and a few of us big noses who have married into the Mizusawa society, new groups of foreigners have appeared in recent years. I have heard Russian spoken in the supermarkets and a few years ago noticed groups of Pinoys and other Southeast Asian women, who presumably have moved to the area to get married. In Japan like in many other developed countries, young women move to cities leaving men to farm without ready access to spouses.

Rural Japan is facing a serious problem of depopulation and aging, with planners and researchers talking about ‘ghost towns’ (my friend Brendan Barrett, a professor at Osaka University is one who has written about the unfortunate phenomenon). Apart from the obvious social problems and the declining services in rural areas, this has also serious environmental consequences as old managed agricultural landscapes disintegrate into abandonment. Somewhat counterintuitively, this even threatens biodiversity as the rice-based agricultural and water management systems developed here over millennia – known as satoyama – maintain a rich and delicate balance between natural and human systems.

The main river has clean water, fish and crayfish

Luckily, these problems are not evident here and Oshu-shi is far from a ghost town. It has a fairly stable population of some 120,000 inhabitants and, as the existence of new cafés and bars attests, there are enough of young people in the town (and many have offspring of their own, which is obvious when visiting a shopping center). The city has enough of diversity in employment – from civil service to commerce to health care to science to agriculture – to support a reasonable level of cultural amenities and good restaurants (one of the best – anywhere! – is Ermitage, a French-Russian style establishment, which has attracted visitors from far away since 1983). It is well connected to the wider world through the shinkansen, as well as the Tohoku expressway. Hanamaki airport is less than 40 km away.

The water is clean and abundant, the locally produced food superior, and the climate pleasant (especially this summer when many places in Japan have broken heat records and dozens of people have died as a consequence – the new normal with climate change, I’m afraid – the somewhat cooler and less moist air of Tohoku is a blessing).

Mizusawa still may not be a thrilling center of excitement, but it is a good place to be. And it feels like home.

Tambo (rice paddy) art on the city edge

China's Asian Dream: Empire Building along the New Silk Road by Tom Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tom Miller, a former journalist and senior analyst at Gavekal Research, is a China expert who has spent years in the country and Asia more broadly, and can speak and read Chinese. This is his second book; the first one, China’s Urban Billion was published by Zed in 2012. He is in an excellent position for having written China’s Asian Dream, that focuses on China’s strategic vision and actions to reclaim what it sees as its rightful place as the undisputed leader in Asia. The book gives a systematic and lively treatise of China’s aspirations on the continent and in the world. It paints a picture that poses significant challenges not only to the neighboring countries in the region, but to the West and the United States in particular.

The first part of the book provides a broad historical and geopolitical context, including a brief overview of China’s long history and its humiliation by Britain and the British East Asia Company in the 1939 Opium War and the 1942 Treaty of Nanking that forced China to open its ports to foreign trade. Then in 1895 followed the defeat in the Sino-Japanese war, no less by a country that China regarded a little brother. Then in 1931 Japan invaded China’s northeast setting up Manchukuo, a puppet state. In 1937, a full-out war broke with Japanese domination for years to come. These were humiliations that China has never forgotten (although Mao later thanked Japan for the invasion, as it eventually enabled the successful Communist takeover in 1949).

Chapter 1 after this introduction tells about the ongoing effort by China to establish a ‘New Silk Road,’ what it calls ‘One Belt, One Road,’ connecting China to its neighbors through both a terrestrial and maritime route eventually leading to Europe. The initiative is tied to financing by the Silk Road Fund and the newly established Asian Infrastructure Development Bank. The aim is to tie Asian countries more tightly to China’s sphere of interest through extensive investment in infrastructure. This more proactive strategy, as Miller points out, is a clear departure from China’s earlier foreign policy established by Deng Xiaoping that “diplomacy must serve the greater goal of domestic development” (p. 26). The current President Xi Jingping has taken a much more aggressive stance in promoting Chinese interests abroad.

The rest of the book is divided into sections based on geography. Here Miller reports first-hand accounts from his travels often to remote local areas in the countries. The first such section focuses on Central Asia, including China’s western Islamic dominated province of Xinjiang (literally, ‘New territory’). The Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan used to belong to the Soviet Union and, while becoming independent after the breakup of the empire, have maintained close ties to Russia. Recently, however, China has made a concerted effort to muscle itself into Central Asia and its expansive oil fields. “Economically, China – not Russia – is now top dog in Central Asia,” writes Miller (p. 75). However, business for the Chinese traders is not always easy, given the need to routinely bribe border guards and the occasional troubles that break out. Tens of thousands of Chinese have settled into Central Asia, but most of them see them as temporary visitors making some money for a few years before returning home. While the Chinese investment is welcomed by the governments, local people fear they are being overtaken by the Chinese – a theme that is quite common throughout the book. Russia at the same time is concerned about losing its grip on Central Asia. Local people in the Stans are worried about Russia’s intentions, especially after Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russia remains militarily dominant in the region and its cultural ties to Central Asia are definitely closer than those of China.

The next part deals with Laos and Cambodia, two of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries downstream in the Mekong basin from China’s Yunnan Province. Yunnan shares a 4,000 km long border with Southeast Asia and the Chinese planners have made it a priority to connect these two parts with extensive road and railway connections, as well as air links. China has designated Yunnan as ‘bridgehead’ for Southeast Asia’s development. As Miller notes, ‘bridgehead’ is a military term, which may have unfortunate connotations (p. 98). Laos is also one of the few remaining communist countries ruled by the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. It is traditionally closely allied with Vietnam and was heavily bombed by the American air force during the Vietnam War, although Laos was not officially a party in the war. When I worked there a decade ago, the Vietnamese presence was still prevalent and Thailand also had a strong influence. In the northern parts of the country, however, you could see an increasing Chinese influence. Today the capital city, Vientiane, has been transformed by Chinese capital. Miller reports from Udomxai, the biggest town in northern Laos where the Chinese make up some 15% of the inhabitants. Even Chinese farmers are moving to Laos to take advantage of the country’s cheap and fertile land. Moving to the infamous opium growing Golden Triangle where Laos meets Thailand and Myanmar, Miller finds industrial scale agricultural plantations operated by the Chinese. Chinese-owned casinos have sprouted up there to cater to Chinese and Thai gamblers; and even the working girls are imported from China (p. 111). Further south, in Cambodia, the Chinese money and influence are equally important and eagerly received by the thuggish Hun Sen regime, which ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International. As a consequence, Cambodia has often been out of line with its fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), regularly supporting China in its controversial and expansionist policies pertaining to Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang and, importantly, the South China Sea. While the elites in these countries are all too happy to receive China and its investments, the relationships between the regular people and the Chinese immigrants who are not known for their respect for other people’s cultures is not always equally friendly. Furthermore, as Miller points out, there is a fine balance to be achieved in foreign relations: for instance, China’s increasing influence in Cambodia is resented in Vietnam (p. 124).

Myanmar provides a cautionary tale as to the perils of associating with undemocratic and corrupt regimes. In the following chapter Miller reports on how China “lost” Myanmar, where it was the closest (in fact only) international ally to the notorious military regime. When the junta dissolved in 2012, anti-Chinese protests ensued, in particular against Chinese state-owned firms operating a giant dam, a copper mine, and oil and gas mines. The Chinese were accused of taking land with poor compensation from locals, as well as destroying the environment and ransacking natural resources (p. 127). Myanmar’s democratic transition coincided by the American government’s ‘pivot to Asia,’ which worried China. Anti-Chinese feelings are widespread in Myanmar and the democratization and consequent freedom of expression led quickly to popular protests against China. Public pressure even caused the new president to suspend work on the $3.6 billion Myitsone Dam that was a Chinese flagship project. The leaders in China were shocked about how popular opinion could lead to such a disastrous outcome – obviously, they were not used to the fact that people’s views mattered – and Chinese analysts started talking about the ‘loss’ or Myanmar (p. 128). Miller claims that in the recent years the Chinese firms have started to understand that they need to improve their relations with local populations (p. 134). The Chinese state has also taken unprecedented steps as a mediator between the government of Myanmar and the Kachin rebels up north. Despite the tensions China should not be counted out in Myanmar. Trade between China and Myanmar stands for a high share of Myanmar’s GDP – and this is not counting the highly significant illegal trade in timber, opium, meta-amphetamines and jade. The environmental watchdog Global Witness estimates that the jade trade in alone 2014 was worth a whopping $31 billion and a significant driver of the armed conflict with the Kachin (p. 141). In the late 1990s, when traveling in the border region of Yunnan and Myanmar, I could witness an incredibly buoyant trade in jade that was by no means under ground. Miller travels to Lashio, the largest town in northeastern Myanmar to seek evidence of a reported ‘Chinese invasion,’ but finds little by way of new arrivals. He concludes that Myanmar doesn’t need to worry about being overrun by Chinese people, but rather by Chinese money: “Myanmar’s problem is less one of outsiders arriving and taking over than one of outsiders taking what they want and then leaving” (p. 148).

One of the reasons why Myanmar is so important is because of China’s desire to gain access to the Bay of Bengal. Such a western seaboard for China would notably improve its energy supplies and reduce the risks of importing most of its oil through the narrow Straits of Malacca that could be blocked by US or other war ships during a time of conflict. Some years ago the Chinese national petroleum company constructed oil and gas pipelines from the Myanmar coast to Yunnan. These pipelines, which were subject to protests during their construction, started pumping natural gas from the Myanmar’s Shwe gas field in 2013 and two years later the first oil was pumped, bringing billions of dollars to the government of Myanmar as well as benefiting China. A Chinese port on the Bay of Bengal is also seen as important for facilitating exports to Bangladesh, India and beyond. Importantly, the economic corridor from Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal allows Beijing to extend its sphere of influence to the Indian Ocean (p. 150). Miller concludes that much depends on how Myanmar’s new government, in effect led by Aung San Suu Kyi, receives China’s approaches and whether Chinese companies there behave responsibly.

In a chapter entitled “A String of Pearls” Miller turns his attention to the Indian Ocean where China has become increasingly active. Indian analysts believe that the Chinese are systematically building naval bases around Indian ocean establishing what they have called ‘a string of pearls’ in order to enhance their dominance of what India considers their backyard. India and China have a half century long history of mutual distrust. Latest this summer, the two countries’ armies were at loggerheads across their land border in the Himalayas. Indian concerns about the ‘string of pearls’ has further intensified since Xi Jinping announce the plan to build a Maritime Silk Road in 2013 (p. 167). Indian analysts that Miller has talked to see China’s advancement as a conscious step by Beijing to expand its dominance in the region. While India could benefit from cooperating with China on initiatives, such as the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor, there are significant security-related concerns. In Miller’s judgment, these are exaggerated: “Beijing is far more interested in securing alternative routes for its energy imports and in protecting commercial sea lanes than it is in building a new empire” (p. 171). This despite the fact that Miller recognizes that China’s schemes have geostrategic as well as commercial motives. India is concerned about Sri Lank sliding into China’s sphere. However, a particular sore point is the long-standing friendship between China and Pakistan, an expression of which is the Chinese port development in Gwadar on the coast of Baluchistan and the associated plan to develop a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor running from Gwadar to the Chinese border and Kashgar in Xinjiang. Apart from opening up an alternative route for energy imports, according to Miller, China also wants to use this massive economic cooperation to persuade Pakistan’s government to rule in Islamic extremists whose tentacles reach across the border to Xinjiang (p. 176). Importantly, the Gwadar port provides a valuable permanent maritime base for China on Indian Ocean, near the shipping lanes from the Middle East and Africa.

China had a close relationship with the government of Mahenda Rajapaksa, former dictatorial and thuggish president of Sri Lanka, supplying the bulk of arms he used in the prolonged civil war against the Tamil population in the north of the island country. During that period, Chinese banks financed major projects in Sri Lanka constructed by Chinese firms. The banks loaned money at high interest rates so that these could be used to provide kickbacks to Rajapaksa and his cronies. After the civil war ended and Rajapaksa died, these high interest rate loans have been a major bone of contention between the new government and China. As Miller states: “For China, Sri Lanka offers a test case of how nimbly its leaders and enterprises can react to the vicissitudes of foreign politics” (p. 195). He quotes a Sri Lankan intellectual saying: “The Chinese do not quite understand how to deal with countries that are democracies, where you have political transitions as we have seen here .. They would rather deal with a corrupt dictatorship and not worry about it.”

The final chapter of the book deals with the fiery waters of South China Sea, an area where tensions have risen in recent years as China has aggressively pursued an expansionist policy (see also Hayton, 2014; Kaplan, 2015). China has claimed sovereignty over most of South China Sea causing conflict with many of its neighbors. It claims the Paracel Islands southeast of Hainan. These are also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam, but China has controlled them since it wrested them from South Vietnam in a maritime battle in 1974. Much further away from the Chinese mainland and its exclusive economic zone as recognized by international law lie the Spratly Islands, which are also subject to disputes between China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan. Using its military power, China has in the past several years focused on creating ‘facts on the ground’ by carrying out massive reclamation works to create artificial islands and building garrisons on them. The Chinese government has, somewhat disingenuously, used both claims based on international law and, when they have been unsuccessful, historical claims to the ownership of the islands. Already in 1975, Deng Xiaoping told his Vietnamese counterpart that the islands of South China Sea had “belonged to China since ancient times” (p. 202). As demonstrated by Bill Hayton in his excellent book The South China Sea and summarized here by Miller, these historical claims are at best dubious. For most part of its 2000 years of history, the South China Sea was a trading area for the various peoples belonging to shifting kingdoms that occupied the littoral. The Chinese empire was not even active in maritime affairs for most of that period. The claims to the South China Sea started appearing in Chinese maps for the first time in 1914 and these were used as a basis for claims by the Nationalist government and the Communists after that. In 2009, China for the first time submitted a map to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in which appeared a nine-dash line (also known as the ‘cow’s lick’) and exerting “indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and adjacent waters” (p. 206). The Southeast Asian nations were understandably furious. Since then, Chinese actions in the South China Sea have resulted in numerous conflicts with the neighbors. China has blocked oil exploration in the territorial waters of Vietnam, which it claims to itself. There have been naval standoffs and actual shooting incidents between Chinese and Vietnamese and Philippines forces. And China has harassed fishing vessels from other countries that have ventured into disputed waters.

One of the reasons for China claiming virtually all of South China Sea, including the EEZs of the adjacent Southeast Asian nations pertains to the hydrocarbons to be found in the seabed. However, Miller does not believe this to be a major motivation: it is believed that the region contains relatively little oil and gas, and what is there is hard to exploit due to difficult geology and powerful typhoons. The real reason he says is to gain strategic control of the shipping lanes (p. 210). Miller appears to have some sympathy for China’s position, although he recognizes that its position is weakened by its selective adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of which it is part, and its refusal to accept a ruling in 2016 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in favor of the Philippines regarding the Scarborough Shoal, a triangular group of reefs and rocks off the coast of the Philippines. The events have also led to tensions with other countries, including Japan, Australia and the US. In fact, the American navy destroyer U.S.S. John McCain, which collided with a tanker off Singapore on August 21st, 2017, was returning from a ‘freedom of navigation’ mission in South China Sea sailing through international waters that China claims. This has led Beijing to believe that there is a US-led anti-Chinese coalition being built involving its Southeast Asian neighbors, as well as Japan, Australia and India.

Tom Miller ends his excellent book with a brief but powerful 10-page conclusion that both acknowledges China’s rightful concerns and its need to “start acting like a great power” (p. 239) given the size of its population and economy, as well as recognizes the challenges that the country itself and the region as a whole face. President Xi’s “proactive” foreign policy in Asia, he writes, “offers a straightforward deal: China will deliver trade, investment and other economic goodies to all partners that accommodate – or, at the very least, do not challenge – its core interests” (p. 240). China’s persuasive power comes from the economic incentives it can provide. It faces questions of trust with its Asian neighbors and partners, especially those that have disputes or historical reasons to distrust China. Also in newly democratic countries, like Myanmar and Sri Lanka, where China is associated with support to previous suppressive regimes, there will be challenges.

However, as Miller, states, “the reality is that China will become a much more visible presence in Asia in the coming decades” (p. 242). And as Chinese nationals and firms spread across the region and the world, President Xi has sworn to protect nationals abroad, using military force if necessary (p. 243). These factors risk blowing up in the future. Still, despite a certain militarization, China has thus far emphasized trade, commercial interests and economic growth, rather than political or geographical expansion (notwithstanding its occupation of Tibet and claims to Taiwan as a rogue province). In President Xi’s words: “We Chinese love peace … No matter how much stronger it may become, China will never seek hegemony or expansion” (p. 245). Miller sees China’s determination to gain control of the region as quite rational and something that the US and regional powers must accept. He finishes the book with the following passage (p. 248):

“It is hardly my place to prescribe how the US and China should avoid war. I do believe, however, that the US and its regional allies must accept China’s determination to carve out its own sphere of influence across Asia. And having accepted the inevitability of China’s rise, the safest course of action is to accommodate it within a remodeled regional security structure. Whether China would accept such an accommodation is another question, and much will depend on the relative strengths of both sides in the decades to come. But as China pursues its vision of national rejuvenation, something has to give. If it does not, the “Chinese dream” might tragically morph into an Asian nightmare.”

Tom Miller has written a very fine book on a topic that is one of the most important developments in the world today. His writing is smooth and entertaining, while he combines historical and political analysis with reporting from the frontlines. Everyone interested in security and development in Asia and the world would benefit from reading this book.

References:

Hayton, Bill (2014). The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Kaplan, Robert D. (2015). Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific. New York: Random House.

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