Volume 26, Number 8 · May 17, 1979
Dangerous Acquaintances
By John K. Fairbank
The US Crusade in China, 1938-1945
by Michael Schaller
Columbia University Press, 364 pp., $14.95
The American-Chinese love/hate affair has oscillated over a wide arc, sometimes appearing to be a romance based on the usual parallel illusions, at other times a realistic marriage of convenience, and sometimes a case of mutual fright owing to misperception of each other's menace. Two cultures that have as much sense of identity, whether spurious or not, as 'America' and 'China' are no doubt fated to run the gamut of feelings about each other. Even today, when the Teng-Carter deal has miraculously pulled normalization out of a hat by the inspired semi-tacit agreement that Taiwan can go along as an American-armed province of the People's Republic, we still find mixed feelings among the American public concerned with China policy and we may confidently expect mixed feelings to surface in China about the new American connection. Since people without mixed feelings are the greatest menace to stability, this can be welcomed. But a common view of history is needed for the long haul ahead, and this will require approximate agreement on the facts of Sino-American relations in the past.
Review, 2719 words
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