© AFP via Anadolu Agency/Mustafa CiftciAcademic Lanxin Xiang
It's impossible in a brief column to do justice to the relevance of the discussions this book inspires. Here we will highlight some of the key issues - hoping they will appeal to an informed readership, especially across the Beltway, now convulsed by varying degrees of Sinophobia.
Xiang delves right into the fundamental contradiction: China is widely accused by the West of lack of democratic legitimacy exactly as it enjoys a four-decade, sustainable, history-making economic boom.
He identifies two key sources for the Chinese problem:
"On the one hand, there is the project of cultural restoration through which Chinese leader Xi Jinping attempts to restore 'Confucian legitimacy' or the traditional 'Mandate of Heaven'; on the other hand, Xi refuses to start any political reforms, because it is his top priority to preserve the existing political system, i.e., a ruling system derived mainly from an alien source, Bolshevik Russia."Ay, there's the rub: "The two objectives are totally incompatible."
Comment: At this point it's often difficult to assess whether these explosions and fires - that are happening all over the world, with an increasing frequency, but often in some places more than others - are natural, accidental, or criminal.