About Face.

The first day I was at work at the Commission, I had no work to do because my terminal wasn't hooked up to the network. A book was laying on a desk next to mine and I decided just to read it. It was titled About Face by James Mann, which I finished just before I left for Indiana. Mann covered the opening of China by Richard Nixon up to the end of the Clinton presidency, explaining the ups and downs of the Sino-US relationship. Very briefly, Mann's thesis is in short that the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the end of the Cold War created an about-face in Sino-USrelations as much as Nixon's opening of China did in the 1970s. The two pivots of history were the the Nixon opening, and the massacre; the one being an about-face in a positive trajectory, and the latter being an about-face in the opposite direction.

Without actually recounting the major events in Sino-US history, Mann draws some broad conclusions:

1. China understands US politics and uses it to its advantage (i.e. inviting opposing congressional parties to that in power to China).
2. US needs to sustain high-level contact with the PRC--sporadic engagement fosters mistrust and miscommunication.
3. US policy toward China relies heavily upon public opinion.

General Updates:

• Sorry for the inactivity on this blog. After getting back from Indiana, I worked the rest of the week to make up for 20 hours lost, then had a packed weekend with Papu's wedding, attending Restoration Church, etc. Hopefully now I'll be back in the swing of things.
• At work I've been slaving away on a one-pager for the annual report, discussing the JF-17/FC-1 that China and Pakistan are jointly developing and producing and the problem of their reliance upon Russia's RD-93 jet engine since Russia is an arms-sales competitor. Fun stuff.
• Indiana was an awesome time. Good time catching up with Kevin, good conversations, and overall a blessed time.