China Can Say No to America

Zhang Xiaobo and Song Qiang are the editors of, as well as contributors with four other young Chinese writers to, the most-discussed new best-seller in China, China Can Say No - Political and Emotional Choices in the Post Cold War Era (May, 1996). The book, which has not yet been translated from Chinese, is consciously modeled after the famous 1991 tract by the Japanese nationalist Shintaro Ishihara, A Japan That Can Say No.

According to a recent poll by the China Youth Research Center, 90 percent of all Chinese youth think the United States tries to dominate China. The figure is higher for college students - 96 percent. Eighty-four percent of Chinese youth feel that the US censure of China for human rights violations is "based on malice."

Beijing - A generation of Chinese has totally and uncritically absorbed Western, particularly American, values. Lately, however, the tide has begun to turn. More and more people in China are looking East instead of West to find a future. Because of the growth of the Chinese economy and the legacy of China's rich cultural traditions many of us maintain that China should aspire to take its place as a world power instead of lamely emulating Western society as, for example, Japan has.

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