Chinasplaining backfires in ‘China’s World View’

I can clearly remember a moment after Barack Obama was reelected in 2012, where a Republican politician declared that his party just had to get better at explaining their message to the voters.

I recall thinking that no, the problem wasn’t a lack of understanding — it was that voters, by and large, didn’t like the substance of the message.

I find myself experiencing a similar reaction to David Daokui Li’s new book “China’s World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict.” The book’s premise is that if Americans (and Westerners in general) simply understood China better, they would have much more positive attitudes toward the country.

I believe that premise to be deeply flawed. Ultimately, I think that reading books like this will increase Americans’ understanding of China, but will lead, if anything, to a more negative view toward the country’s ruling regime.

I should mention that this book comes highly recommended by Tyler Cowen, whose instincts on these matters are rarely off. He writes:

I suspect that this praise is a bit Straussian. Yes, “China’s World View” does give useful, if brief, explanations of some of China’s institutions — its government, its education system, its political economy, and some other institutions.

It’s surprisingly light on the economy itself, given that the author is an academic economist; “China’s Economy”, by Arthur Kroeber, is a much better introduction. Its discussion of the internal workings of the Chinese Communist Party is OK, but far less in-depth than Richard McGregor’s “The Party” (and just as dated). And so on.

Which is why I suspect that Tyler’s fulsome praise of the book stems at least in part from the fact that it’s a window into the worldview of the people who are