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American Images of China, 1931-1949. By T. Christopher Jespersen. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. xxii, 254 pp. $39.50, ISBN 0-8047-2596-9.)
There are few countries more different than the United States and China. And yet, throughout this century down to the present day, many Americans who should know better have assumed that China ought to and eventually will become just like the United States. During the Pacific war, in some circles this implausible myth took an even stronger form- China already was very much like the United States. According to a film produced by United China Relief in 1942 and described by T. Christopher Jespersen in this stimulating book, Chiang Kai-shek's ideas about "government, free enterprise and free labor taken from the United States" had led to a China that was "literally 'made in the USA."'
The myth of a China that is on its way to becoming an Asian version of the United States has had fateful consequences for both American foreign and domestic policy. During World War II, it blinded some policy makers to what was really going on...