Part II The Present and the Future
Part II The Present and the Future
- Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
- and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
p. 73↵This half of the book will focus on China today and China tomorrow. It begins with a chapter called “From Mao to Now,” which looks at some of the most significant figures (such as Deng Xiaoping), policies (such as the famous if somewhat misleadingly named “One-Child” Policy), and events (including 1989’s Tiananmen protests and the 2008 Olympics) of the last four decades. One central topic it explores is the surprising longevity of the CCP, an organization that many felt was on its last legs in 1989 and yet is now preparing to celebrate its hundredth anniversary in 2021. The second chapter in this section is intended to help readers make sense of a time when the United States and China are the world’s two leading economic and political powers. It looks at some of the ways that the United States has misunderstood and continues to misunderstand China, often because it fails to appreciate just how diverse the PRC is. After that, the chapter turns the tables to look, more briefly, at Chinese misconceptions about the United States, which often arise from a failure to appreciate how different the US and Chinese media systems are. The section, and the book, ends with some forecasts about the future, and some suggestions about how in the years to come the people of the United States and the people of China might begin to see more clearly the big country across the Pacific from them.
