Island People: The Caribbean and the World, by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro -- A book review

This is a great book on many levels. Although it was published already in 2017, it hardly matters given the historical context and the fact that the Caribbean nations have not changed dramatically since then.
Joshua Jelly-Schapiro knows the Caribbean intimately and is extremely well-read in the region and its culture, from history and literature to music. He covers the places he visits or stays in for longer periods from the time of Columbus’ journeys, the colonial period when the islands were used for sugar plantations relying on slave labor, to contemporary cultural trends. This is how a travelogue should be: personal but anchored in the larger historical-geographic-political context, erudite but entertaining.

Yet, it took me some time to wade through the 430+ pages. Not because I wasn’t interested but because some of the chapters (each dealing with a specific island) were rather heavy going. Some sections on the larger islands — Jamaica and Cuba each get three chapters — are lively, mixing culture and societal commentary with the author’s personal experiences.
In the case of Jamaica, rasta culture and reggae, naturally, play an important part. It’s not only about Bob Marley, but also Toots Hibbert, Peter Tosh and many others get their share. Jelly-Schapiro spends time with Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records that brought reggae to a wider audience, now living in the villa where Ian Fleming dreamed up James Bond. Jelly-Schapiro places these cultural and musical factors firmly into the socio-political setting.
Similarly, the highly personal section on Cuba brings together history, politics, economy, music and culture. He explores the notion of cubanidad, which “first crystallized as an important, if still vague, idea when the cause of Cuban independence” was promoted by José Martí in the 1880s and 1890s (p. 120). He equally explores the roots of the specifically Cuban music that we love in the mélange of African and European traditions. He highlights the role of Israel “Cachao” Lopez, the legendary musician and composer broght to broader fame in his later years through Buenavista Social Club. The last of the three chapters concerns Cuba in the twilight of Fidel Catro’s reign.
The chapter on Puerto Rico emphasizes the island’s relationhip with the United States and the diaspora in the Bronx. The chapter also traces the history of Puerto Rican nationalism and its hero, Pedro Albizu Campos.
The three chapters dedicated to Hispaniola are weighed down by history, perhaps inevitably given how important it is in explaining the current state of affairs. The two countries that share the island — Dominican Republic and Haiti — are often contrasted, with the first one coming on top as a developmental success story and the second as a hopeless basket case. Jelly-Schapiro brings much nuance to this interpretation highlighting the violent and dictatorial history of the Dominican Republic, while bringing out the humanity in Haiti. He sheds light on the curious racial relations on the island, stemming from the two sides’ histories as Spanish vs. French colonies, and how these continue to cause tensions between the two.
The four chapters covering eight smaller islands in the Lesser Antilles are shorter, perhaps because there’s not that much to report (and perhaps because the author seems to have spent less time on each of them, which is perfectly understandable). His reporting from these islands tends to poke holes to the image of them as paradise. Yet, Jelly-Schapiro’s understanding still brings forth many distinctive features between, say, Barbados and Barbuda, both with a history as British colonies and sugar plantations.
Grenada has a distinct political history and a charismatic leader, Maurice Bishop, executed by his political rivals in 1983. Ronald Reagan found the island’s socialist experiment so threatening that he sent in the marines to subdue the tiny island nation, on the pretext of the presence of Cuban workers helping to expand the airport.
Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory where Sir George Martin, the legendary producer built a house and studio, rose to international attention in 1995 when the long-dormant Soufrière volcano erupted destroying Plymouth, the capital, and forced two-thirds of the island’s population to flee. Jelly-Schapiro explores the volcanic zones with an American geography professor, Lydia Pulsipher, and her husband. They note how, following the disaster, the British governmental aid agency DFID, relocated people into new houses in a non-affected area: “they’re well bjuilt, but they’ve got nothing to do with how Montserratians live; with the old social structure here, and with homes they built to fit it” (p. 319). Unfortunately, this is a picture that often emerges when well-meaning outsiders try to assist countries to rebuild after a disaster (for example in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami).
Martinique, which still today is a French territory and the westernmost extension of EU, deserves a lengthy chapter, largely due to the writers and political thinkers it has produced, such as Aimé Césaire and Patrick Chamoiseau. Jelly-Schapiro writes (p. 358):
“Few large countries, let alone little ones, boast the literary riches allowing one to trace the whole modern arc of their culture, and the contours of that culture’s conflicts, through those of its books.”
Accordingly focusing on these writers and their poetry and their legacy at the expense of the author’s own experiences, these 32 pages took me more effort than most other parts of the book.
Throughout, the book discusses numerous authors from the islands, many of whom have achieved fame outside of the Caribbean: C.L.R. James and V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad), George Lamming (Barbados), Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua), Franz Fanon (Martinique), Jean Rhys (Dominica), and the already-mentioned Aimé Césaire and Patric Chamoiseau
Luckily, he saved the best for the last. The 40-page final chapter on Trinidad is superbly crafted. Its culture and social and political issues are presented in a very animated way. Jelly-Schapiro has spent ample time on the island, including as a visiting scholar at the university. The carnival, the calypso and steel bands form a sort of a backbone to the chapter. Jelly-Schapiro tells the dramatic story of Michael Abdul Hakim (a.k.a. Michael X), a Black activist, and the people around him.His best informant is Jay Telfer, an octogenarian figure whom he befriended. Telfer who in the 1960s played a central role in bringing West Indian culture, including the Notting Hill Carnival, to London, is a font of information and a delightful character. Before that, in the 1950s, Jay Telfer studied at NYU and worked at the jazz clubs in Greenwich Village where he met many jazz legends, and where Thelonius Monk told Telfer he was the only man able to dance to Monk’s music. Although involved in politics throughout his career, Jelly-Schapiro says of Telfer: “Personal ethics, like personal style, were for him much more important than politics” (p. 411).
Jelly-Schapiro has written a highly interesting and valuable book, although it is somewhat uneven. He generally writes well alternating between the casual when describing his own personal experiences and the academic. There are places where his style can get a bit out of hand. Take, for example, this sentence about Chamoiseau (p. 334):
“And his ideas’ shadows have been palpably present, too, over polemics surrounding the French Antilles’ great human export of now; those other public artists — soccer players — whose goals in World Cup stadia, firing France to victory in a Coupe de Monde contested in Paris in 1998, prompted scenes of joy on the Champs-Elysées more massive than any since the Liberation, and forced a country still unaccustomed to seeing itself reflected in the brown and black faces of its colonies to ask pointed questions about what, two centuries after Robespierre’s fall, a Frenchman is.”
Apart from these squabbles, it is a book worthy of its author, a fellow geographer, with a PhD from UC Berkeley. Finally, Jelly-Schapiro confesses to having adopted C.L.R. James as “a kind of intellectual hero and style icon alike” (p. 401):
“Here was a scholar activist who wrote with equal verve and brilliance about the Haitian Revolution and the game of cricket, Hegelian philosophy and Hollywood movies, Herman Melville and calypso music — and whose synthetic aptitude for doing so, moreover, found him placing all those subjects within the larger telos not only of modern capitalism but also of humanity’s struggle for democracy reaching back to the Greeks.”
If this cultural-historical-political-social mixture was what Joshua Jelly-Schapiro aimed for in this book, I think he pretty much succeeded.

The Eurasian Century, by Hal Brands

 

This is a fact-filled book written in a highly readable and lively style. I found it very satisfying on several fronts, although I can sympathize with some of the reviewers who disagree with Hal Brands’ point of view. He makes no effort to hide where he is coming from, seeing the democratic West as something worth defending, and the USA as the necessary guarantor to the free world.

 Brands draws upon the geopolitical theories and traditions of Halford Mackinder, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Nicholas Spykman, and others. This is one of the attractions of the book. As a trained geographer myself, I’ve always thought that geopolitics was unfairly criticized for decades. Sure, it was originally associated with the Swede Rudolf Kjellén and the German Friedich Ratzel both of whom were something of social Darwinists and whose ideas were embraced by the Nazis. Brand’s view is nuanced and his application of the perspective is intelligent. He sums it up: “Geopolitics tempered by democracy was stark but rarely evil. Geopolitics with an autocratic bent was poison, pure and simple” (p. 31). Bad application of an approach should not be a reason to ban the entire discipline (for example, genetics has been misused for bad purposes but it nevertheless is a vital science).

 The first two-thirds of the book is dedicated to a backward look at the 20^th century: the two World Wars, the Cold War, and the quarter century of peace and prosperity following the fall of the Soviet Union. The final part looks at the “second Eurasian century” which we are currently living and draws lessons from the past.

 It is easy to see why readers of a certain persuasion would object to Brand’s interpretation. He readily acknowledges the American mistakes and overreactions in building and defending a safe and free world. Often, in defending democracy, America ended up crushing it and supporting oppressive regimes that it saw to be on its side. Scores of people died in wars from Vietnam to Iraq and many smaller skirmishes. However, Brand is unabashedly of the view that the US-dominated world after World War II has been, in the balance, hugely positive to everyone, and that US involvement in the world—especially the central Eurasian continent and the surrounding seas—is a necessity for the world and its people to prosper.

 He does see the threat posed by rising isolationism. Although the book was published in 2025, the manuscript must have been completed prior to the November 2024 elections. Brand writes: “If America makes a habit of electing aspiring strongmen, it may not remain a democratic superpower. And don’t think for a second that troubled autocracies can’t bring a world of woe” (p. 219). Unfortunately, it seems this is where we stand for the moment.

 Although a multipolar world would seem desirable at the face of it, the contenders to fill the other pole posts—notably China and Russia—do not provide an attractive alternative. In fact, these revisionist powers represent illiberal authoritarian regimes that would limit free speech and civil liberties in their spheres of influence. Western Europe without the US will not be able to resist. Brand makes a strong case for a broad coalition of democracies to cooperate, in terms of politics and policy, innovation and technology, and military. Citing Harry Truman in 1948: “America must pay the price for peace.” Brand’s final warning: “There is no law of nature that expansion must fail and tyranny must be vanguished. There is no guarantee that history takes the path of progress” (p. 245).  As the book shows, the 20^th century history is full of examples where things could have gone badly wrong.

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.

Evidence for Hope -- A Review

This is an interesting and quite original book. The topic is very important, given the two crises facing humanity today: those of environmental sustainability (or lack thereof) and misinformation / disinformation. Rob van den Berg, the former director of evaluation at the Global Environment Facility and, before that the Netherlands government, tackles these interconnected challenges from a personal perspective. Anchored in an understanding of philosophical traditions, he emphasizes the importance of worldviews to how evidence is perceived. A historian by training, van den Berg explores the historical roots of such worldviews and how the understanding of what constitutes evidence has evolved from religious texts to science to more heterodox views.

He identifies four worldviews that are prevalent today and how they view evidence. These are: sustainable economic growth; social and economic interactions; social, economic and environmental sustainability; and populism, patriotism and conspiracies. He points out that “detachment from evidence may be a contributing factor to our failures to reign in conspiracy theories and/or racist inspired theories of our world” (p. 4).

Van den Berg defines evidence as consisting of observations, explanation, and expectations. He points out that data and observations per se do not constitute evidence. Explanation is based on theories of what the observations tell us. As for expectations, “(I)f we have credible observations that are explained by a credible theory, we can verify that the observations and explanations are correct, by making a hypothesis on what we would observe in the future” (p. 33). Evidence is thus the well-considered and reasoned judgement of the above three.

He is not afraid of expressing controversial views (in the biography at the end of the book he states that he prides himself on "independence of mind"). A main target is the mechanistic perspective adopted by many scientists. He critiques medical science that relies on randomized controlled trials as the only method for testing and approving medicines and treatments (recognizing the commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry)—and the evaluators who have embraced RTCs as a “gold standard.” He is equally critical of physicists who focus on sub-atomic level and extrapolate these rules to human behavior (he does find some consolation in physics that recognizes the interconnectedness of all things). The strongest arguments are contained in the chapters on causality (9-10). He takes a systems perspective, arguing that higher level systems behave in non-linear ways and human actions are intentional and informed by our own will, rather than predetermined by molecular interactions. 

While causality has fallen out of favor among some physical scientists, the author makes a strong case for the importance of causality in the real world. It is also essential for the applied science and practice of evaluation (as well as policy in general). His argument is that “If we want to be successful in dealing with the sustainability crises, we need to agree on the meaning of causality, and how it helps us get out of the hole we dug for ourselves and our societies and this planet” (p. 179) and that “causality is a key ingredient to come to action based on reasoned judgements of evidence” (pp. 193-194). However, causality in real life is rarely linear: it is nearly always composite and very often complex. Two further concepts that emerge as important refer to blocked causality (in essence, barriers to change) and catalytic causality. Two chapters (10 & 11) focus on systems, including causality for transformational change and how to transform systems.

While environmental, social and economic sustainability is a constant backdrop to the book, it is in the last few chapters where it takes center stage. The penultimate chapter (12) focuses on action for transformational change based on evidence. Referring to the title of the book, the author outlines what he calls “evidence for despair” before moving to “evidence for hope.” He draws primarily from the fast advancements in energy generation and storage, and their catalytic impact. He also cites his own experiences, including with the Transformational Change Learning Partnership of the Climate Investment Funds. The author remains critical of the orthodox economics worldview but he also thinks of ways of harvesting this kind of thinking for transformation. One such way pertains to how market forces are harnessed for the energy transition. He points out that, contrary to the misinformation supplied by the fossil fuel companies and their allies, renewable energy is actually getting cheaper than the traditional alternatives, which will make market transformation inevitable. He calls for the systematization of knowledge into an easily accessible repository, thus turning “a mountain of evidence” into “a fountain of knowledge” (pp. 264-267).

Rob van den Berg is ultimately an optimist. At no point minimizing the challenges we face, he still concludes that the world is on the verge of a sustainability revolution—in fact, it is the only option for humanity. Refreshingly, he notes that many climate activists argue that “humanity needs to scale down, needs to live close to nature, needs to become sober, needs to return to living off the land, needs to stop consuming and so on” (p. 276). However, their approach would basically doom humanity to poverty and scarcity. According to van den Berg, renewable sources have the potential to provide enough energy for all of us not needing to sacrifice our comforts. “The Third Energy Revolution has barely started but shows huge promise!” (p. 278).

Rob van den Berg is extremely well-read in a wide variety of subjects and disciplines, citing equally from philosophical and historical tracts, as well as texts concerning economics and the environment. This alone makes his line of argumentation compelling and fascinating. Despite the heavy content, the book is an easy read. This is largely because of Rob’s writing style, which is quite conversational, drawing on his personal experiences and emphasizing his own viewpoints.

Highly recommended to people from a variety of backgrounds—and a variety of worldviews—this is an important contribution towards how we understand evidence and causality, and how we can all contribute to a sustainability transition.

Shrinking the Earth: The Rise and Decline of Natural Abundance by Donald Worster

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Are there limits to growth – of economy, population, natural resource use, wealth – or will human ingenuity always concur the obstacles through capital and technology? Donald Worster, an environmental historian, tracks the ebb and flow of these contrasting ideas in North America and Europe since the discovery of the Americas half a millennium ago – the Second Earth, as he calls it. Worster’s history is an authoritative one, thoroughly researched, at times poetic, always insightful and thought-provoking. Worster builds a theory upon F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. The mysterious green light that Jay Gatsby saw in the mist across the Long Island Sound enticed him but in reality was nothing more magical than a light bulb at the end of Daisy’s boat dock. The green light becomes a metaphor for the perceived natural abundance that Europeans discovered as they entered the Western Hemisphere – but would this green light also turn out to be a chimera, as the nature is conquered and overexploited, and the Earth shrinks?

Worster takes as his starting point the “discovery” of the Americas (along with Australia, Oceania and southern Africa), which he marks as the beginning of the modern period of human ecology that was global in scope and triggered profound changes in almost every society on earth (p. 7).

The book is divided into three parts, roughly according to three historic periods: the expansionist age after the discovery of the Second Earth, the sobering era in the late-19th and early-20th centuries when pollution and destruction of nature became apparent, and the latter part of the 1900s when the debate on the limits to growth fully emerged. Each of these parts ends with a record of a field trip that demonstrates the previous discussion in concrete terms.

The first part of the book, ‘Second Earth,’ describes the excitement that followed the discovery of the Americas by the Europeans and how Mercator’s map with its second sphere next to the old world map (literally the second earth) spurred the imagination of men in Europe. The old continent at that time was becoming crowded, its farmland and natural resources already stretched. When the new frontier opened, it became to be seen as a source of endless wealth in terms of land, forests, water, fish and wildlife. Imaginings of gold and other treasures added to the fables as Europeans started to flock to the new continent, which was also considered empty and free for anyone to come to. Worster also discusses the more theoretical thinking about abundance in the era’s intellectual climate. He notes that economics “still carried a residue of prediscovery attitudes – and awareness of natural limits that must eventually restrain the accumulation of wealth” (p. 42). Adam Smith, known for establishing the foundations free market economy in his magnum opus The Wealth of Nations (1776), as well as John Stuart Mill both recognized that nature’s limits must ultimately lead to a stable state. This, however, was not the dominant view.

The first field trip takes us to Nantucket off the New England coast. A group of British immigrants settled on the island in 1659, soon realizing that the place was not well-suited for agriculture. Instead, they turned to hunting and fishing. Nantucket became a center of whaling, but the Atlantic whale stocks were depleted in just over a century and the Nantucket whalers ended up taking longer and longer trips with less and less catch. Using historical records, statistics and literature (notably Melville’s Moby Dick). Worster paints a lively story of the whaling industry’s rise and fall, concluding: “The new fuels (that replaced blubber) did help remove pressure from the remaining populations of whales; they did not “save” the whales. Nor did capitalism or the supposedly benign and rational play of markets save them. Whales were saved only by the passage of laws and the exercise of moral constraint” (p. 69). This reflects a common theme in the book. Markets do not self-regulate when it comes to exploiting a common resource.

The second part of the book is entitled ‘After the Frontier.’ The first chapter in it is dedicated to George Perkins Marsh, perhaps the first influential environmental thinker in America. As Worster notes, “Marsh’s book (Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, 1864) represents an important intellectual moment in the transition from an age of plenty to an age of limits” (p. 81). Marsh saw warning signs from the European history where overuse had taken a toll on the land. Again, Marsh’s warnings fell mostly on deaf ears. This was the time when expansion of coal mining and the creation of steel mills it enabled brought prosperity to America – or at least to the owners of these facilities, such as Andrew Carnegie – while wreaking havoc on the environment and creating severe pollution in industrial towns and regions.

President Theodore Roosevelt and his advisors, Gifford Pinchot and WJ McGee get deservedly a full chapter. Teddy Roosevelt was an outdoors man and a big game hunter. He came to be known as a great conservationist, establishing the US system of national parks. “No president, before or after, did more than Roosevelt to protect and preserve land in the United States. No one did more to conserve wild nature for its own sake” ... “Roosevelt, however, never believed that conservation should merely mean preserving the natural environment. He also sought to exploit nature in new ways and places” (p. 111). The thinking of Roosevelt and his advisors led to a technocratic approach that emphasized re-engineering nature for the purpose of expanding productivity and wealth. The period’s most prominent environmentalist, John Muir, disagreed with his friend the President on this philosophy.

The field trip tells the story of California’s Imperial Valley, an arid desert near the Mexican border, which was started to be developed into agricultural land at the turn of the 20th century. The project would require enormous amounts of money and labor, but most importantly it meant dealing with the mighty Colorado river, controlling and re-channeling its waters to support agricultural production. While Imperial Valley survives as an agricultural area till today, its future remains uncertain as competition over water resources grows and demands from the cities of coastal California increases, while climate change bring further droughts.

The third and final part, ‘Planet of Limits,’ focuses on the time after World War II to the present. The initial postwar decades were marked by optimism and a belief in the America Dream. There would be no bounds to growth and prosperity. Man’s inventiveness would overcome all limitations that the natural world would try to pose. The American economy was booming and consumerism was ripe. Cars, houses, consumer goods were produced in massive quantities. At the same time, human population growth peaked: almost 200,000 babies were added to the world population every day. The world population grew from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 3.7 billion in 1970 (today there are 7.6 billion of us on the planet and, contrary to common beliefs, population growth continues at a rapid rate; projections expect our numbers to reach 9.8 billion by mid-century). Oil provided fuel for the massive expansion of economy but it didn’t add new resources to humankind. “Did cheap oil in the postwar era reopen a wholly new world of abundance to replace the one discovered by Christopher Columbus? Was it a Third Earth” asks Worster and answers: “Not all … But for a while its abundance could and did work a miraculous change” (p. 143).

Worster tracks the arguments between the believers in eternal growth and those in the emerging environmental movement. When President Harry Truman started worrying about impending resource scarcity, he appointed a Material Policy Commission. The commission recognized that it would in the future be harder to satisfy the demand for materials, but it still concluded that “the principle of Growth” through “free enterprise” was worth preserving (p. 146). This was a clear win of ideology over logic. While the economists, business people and politicians cheered on ever expanding capitalism, there was a new environmentalism rising with authors and thinkers such as Rachel Carson (Silent Spring) and Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb).

A chapter is dedicated to The Limits to Growth. Its main authors, Dennis and Donella Meadows, young American scientists whose eyes had been opened during a post-graduation trip to India, teamed up with the Italian visionary industrialist Aurelio Peccei and Scottish science advisor to OECD Alexander King. The latter two established the Club of Rome, a think-tank to address what they called “world problematique.” This collaboration also involved an MIT statistician Jay Forrester and led to the publication of The Limits to Growth in 1972, a highly influential book (which also greatly influenced me in my youth). At that time, the team was mostly concerned with the depletion of nonrenewable resources. They questioned the idea that growth – in population, agricultural production, industrial output – could continue infinitely on a finite planet. Their position was not dogmatic and they did not prescribe solutions; still they were attacked viciously by most economists. Donella expressed her surprise at the “intensity of the reaction” to the book that simply cautioned that exponential growth was not possibly forever (p. 169). Limits to Growth suggested that limiting the number of children and consumption was necessary. This was unacceptable to the critics who would not accept any limits to individual freedom. At the same time, there was criticism from the left on the grounds that growth was needed to eliminate poverty in the world. These tensions are of course very much present in society today.

For a while it appeared that those advocating for unlimited growth – spurred on by human ingenuity that would always find substitutes when materials ran short – was winning. And it certainly took hold of politicians and economists many of whom till this day tend to think in these terms. Yet, ideas regarding ecological limits have constantly gained momentum and attention paid to environmental destruction caused by industrial and agricultural production has increased. The science community organized itself around global initiatives, such as the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and others in the 1990s and as the concern over climate change became prevalent bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have gathered irrefutable scientific evidence of the environmental havoc our economic system is causing (the IPCC released its latest report in the autumn of 2018 with a dire warning for us to mend our ways or to face peril). Systematic analysis of ‘planetary boundaries’ by the Stockholm Resilience Centre led by Johan Rockström has shown that we have already breached safe operating space for humanity in terms of species extinction, climate change and nitrogen pollution.

The final field trip is to Athabasca River in western Canada, one of the remaining wildernesses in North America – the final place where the green light beckons. The area is now threatened by massive extraction of shale oil from its bituminous sands, leaving the natural beauty of the forested watersheds badly tarnished. The excavation of the tar sands is egged on by reduced availability of oil from more conventional sources and the thawing of the northern areas due to climate change.

Donald Worster has written a majestic account of the rise and fall of natural abundance in North America and the world. His prose is beautifully crafted and engaging. The historical and scientific sources are supplemented by frequent and well-chosen references to literature. Still, Worster’s account is factual and he never preaches, leaving the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. In the epilogue, ‘Life on a Pale Blue Dot,’ Worster places Earth in a cosmic perspective and concludes that irrespective of scientific and technological advances, this planet is the only home we have or will have in any foreseeable future. At the end he ponders about the future of liberal and democracy in the face of natural limits. “Is individualism sustainable when the material horizons begin to shrink and ecological systems to unravel,” he asks. On an optimistic note, “our descendants … might choose to redefine democracy in less fragmented, individualistic terms – not as a political culture devoted to freeing the individual from all restraint, but instead as a culture that embraces restraint for all” (p. 224).



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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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