THE YEAR 2000
By Herman Kahn
and Anthony J. Wiener
MacMillan, New York
1967, 431pp., US$9.95
Reviewed by Chiping Kiang
Machiavelli thinks that half of men's actions are ruled by chance and the other half are governed by men themselves. This book represents an effort to change that balance.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has created a Commission on the Year 2000 and entrusted the research to Herman Kahn and Anthony Wiener, two "professional prophets" of the Hudson Institute, a prestigious think tank. They offer their educated speculation on what the world may look like at the beginning of the 21st century.
Herman Kahn is a mathematician, physicist and former Rand specialist and the author of On Thermonuclear War, Thinking About the Unthinkable and Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios.
To visualize the world of 33 years from now, the authors have based their projections on assumptions about the continuance of existing trends. In the case of the United States, the authors predict that by 2000 the country will have a population of 421 million with labor force of 179 million compared to 76 million in 1965. The gross national product will grow from 818 million (low) and 1,062 million (high) in 1965 to 4 billion (low) and 8 billion (high) in 2000. The standard of living will be from three to six times that of 1965. American cities will have grown into the megalopolises of Boswash (Boston-Washington), Chipitts (Chicago-Pittsburgh), and Sansan (San Francisco-San Diego).
The Soviet Union is expected to become equal or possibly superior to the United States in weaponry and concomitantly more willing to take risks. In the past 20 years the Soviets have faced substantial military inferiority and therefore have taken a conservative attitude toward risks as during the Cuban missile crisis. In many non-Communist nations, not excluding the United States, wishful thinking and rationalization may reach a new high in the effort to avoid war.
The prophets see no foreseeable limit to American economic development and control of the environment. But the capacity of culture and institutions to adapt themselves to so much change in so short a time is limited. Domestic disturbances will continue to afflict the world.
In most analyses of Chinese Communist policies, particularly those directly affecting U.S. interests, most American scholars have invariably stressed Communist capability. Kahn and Wiener disagree with "exaggerated estimates with regard to the prospects of Communist China". They warn against the tendency to (1) over estimate the political, military and economic effectiveness of the Chinese population on the mainland; (2) impute to the Communists a nearly magical capacity to galvanize immediate revolutions - a capacity not borne out by the record; (3) assume a perfect discipline and inevitable success in industrial development; and (4) assume that the Communists can not be deterred by material or military threats.
As to the possibility of nuclear war, few will disagree with the authors that "under current conditions prevailing between large and small nuclear powers, if it came to tout au rien, there could be only one outcome: damage to the large state, annihilation for the small". Kahn and Wiener do not believe the growth of the Chinese Communist missile forces is likely to make much difference in the future balance of power. They have, however, speculated on a possible nuclear exchange between the Chinese Communists and the United States. They foresee Communist defeat and American occupation of Shanghai, Canton and Shantung as well as Southern Manchuria. The Soviet Union, they say, would act as Stalin did in Poland in 1939 and move into Peiping, Northern Manchuria and Sinkiang. In this speculation, the authors seem to overlook the dimensions assumed by present turmoil on the Chinese mainland. The anti-Maoist movement may soon be transformed into a total revolt of the people against Communism. It is doubtful that Lin Piao's army could resist and contain such a revolt.
While they discount the importance of Chinese Communist development of nuclear weapons, the authors suggest that the really important point is the extent of Chinese Communist influence in Asia, Africa and America. In this connection, it may be noted that the Republic of China has gained wider support and influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America through moderate programs of technical assistance.
Kahn and Wiener have this to say of the future of the Peiping regime:
"Most close students of Chinese Communism expect post-Mao leadership to exhibit increasingly rational or revisionist tendencies, although those same scholars must admit that they were surprised by the cultural revolution."
THE EAST IS RED
By Maslyn William.
William Morrow, New York
1967, 266 pp., US$5.50
Reviewed by Charles C. Clayton
There has been a plethora of books in recent years on life in Communist China. Most of them are by British observers, usually journalists, and they follow a fairly common pattern. The visitors see only what the Peiping regime wishes them to see, but most of the writers seem impelled to return this restricted hospitality by reporting favorably on life behind the Bamboo Curtain.
This book does not adhere to the familiar pattern. Maslyn Williams is an Australian journalist. As he explains in a foreword, "the tourist track has been well raked over". Much of the informational material readily available in other publications has been omitted. Instead, he reports fully on his own impressions and conclusions.
The validity of these impressions and judgments must be determined by the reader. All of his conclusions are interesting and some are persuasive. He does not accept many Communist claims. Of boasting about industrial expansion, he writes, "Chinese publicists share with their Western brethren a childlike tendency to stretch facts as far as the resilience of statistics and a listener's credulity will permit."
One of the impressions the reader quickly gains is of the concentrated and continuous efforts of the Mao regime to indoctrinate the people of Red China and especially the children. Williams devotes a chapter to his visit to the Museum of the Revolution, a destination high on the prescribed list for foreign visitors to Peiping. He found it crowded with school children. They were being herded through the 18 galleries by teachers who lectured them on the revolution from the early struggles of the peasants against the Manchu dynasty down to those against the Kuomintang.
Everywhere he went he heard the United States denounced as the No. 1 enemy. American "imperialism" was blamed for Red China's troubles as well as for the war in Vietnam. He went to a motion picture theater where he saw a "long and quarrelsome news reel showing the innocent victims of savage and ruthless U.S. imperialistic aggression" in Vietnam, as well as scenes from foreign newsreels showing anti-U.S. demonstrations on five continents and riots in the United States.
Of the newsreels he writes, "Similar images and often the same shots, with almost identical comment will have been seen on television and in cinemas all over the world. Only the phrases are interchangeable. For U.S. aggression read 'Communist menace'. For 'members of the liberation forces' use 'subversive elements'. For 'revolutionaries' put 'terrorists'. The people and the pain are the same in each version."
The author weaves a great deal of Chinese history into his account. Whether the European professor he uses as a historical source is real or a convenient literary device doesn't matter. The professor fills in the history and explains the link between the past and what is happening on the mainland today. For the Western reader, not too familiar with Chinese history, this is helpful. The professor explains, for example, how Chinese civilization began in the Yellow River basin and how the river has been the key to much of what has happened since. The whole history of China, the professor maintains, "has turned largely upon the capacity or the neglect of rulers to protect their people from the destructive power of these big rivers."
Williams sums up his impressions in a gloomy epilogue. "I left China," he writes, "because I was depressed. After ten weeks in that huge hive of strangers I was feeling isolated, alone and totally irrelevant. I had ceased to be excited by what I was seeing, and instead, was becoming troubled, glum and vaguely afraid...of the feeling that there would soon be war between them and America; that they were expecting it and getting ready for it, were almost anxious that it begin."
He saw the Red Guard movement only in its early stage. But there may be some validity in his conclusions. "The Red Guard movement," he writes, "is a concomitant and collective initiation of the millions of China's children into the status of warrior-revolutionaries. China is making a declaration, telling everybody that she is prepared to defend herself against America and the rest of the Western World, including Russia, if necessary."
The author found little or no opposition to Mao. But this was in 1966 when the "cultural revolution" was just beginning. Additionally he was restricted in his contacts with people.
"I find myself," he concludes, "unable to take sides because the struggle taking place in the world today is not of nation against nation, of one great philosophical sect against another. It is a collective dilemma in which every living man, woman and child faces the end."
This view, of course, is pessimistic and not justified by the facts. One can only conclude that the author, like others who have visited Red China, is confused by contradictions, and bewildered by propaganda. However, the book affords many intimate glimpses of life behind the Bamboo Curtain as seen by foreign visitors who travel what the author describes as "the prepared route".
Williams, who lives in Sydney, is the author of Stone Age Island and a novel, The Far Side of the Sky.