Andrew J Nathan
Biographic Data
| ID | 731165 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andrew J Nathan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andrew J |
| FAMILY NAME | Nathan |
| SIGNATURE | NATHAN A J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| ORCID | 0009-0008-0700-9573 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 88 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 701 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 85 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1965 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
An unplanned journey: Contingent events and the study of China
Contingent events shaped my career in China studies. As the field expanded, scholars took up jobs in the academic disciplines, which led away from 'area studies' to more specialized work. When China opened to the West, students encountered China less as a remote abstraction and more as a place with real people in all their diversity. My involvement with human rights led me to engage with a distinctive set of Chinese people, from whom I learned mu…
The Beginnings of Mass Culture: Journalism and Fiction in the Late Ch’ing and Beyond
A Shared Future for Mankind’: Rhetoric and Reality in Chinese Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping
The phrase ‘work to build a community with a shared future for mankind’ became the guiding slogan of Chinese foreign policy in 2017. Beneath its smooth surface, the concept contains several layers of complex and sometimes contradictory meanings. Among other things, it seeks to position China both as one among many developing countries, treating all as equals, and as a major world leader that exerts influence over other states and the internationa…
Biden’s China Policy: Old Wine in New Bottles
The Biden Administration has accepted the Trump Administration’s definition of China as a ‘strategic competitor’, and has retained Trump’s tariffs, the ‘Quad’, and the upgrade in Taiwan’s protocol status. But Biden’s China policy is different from Trump’s in being truly strategic. The key elements of that strategy are focused on improving the United States’ competitiveness domestically and in international affairs; cooperation with allies and par…
China’s influence and the Center-periphery Tug of War in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indo-Pacific
"Bringing together a team of cutting-edge researchers based in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Asia-Oceania countries, this book focuses on the tug of war between China's influence and forces of resistance in Hong Kong, Taiwan and selected countries in the surrounding regions. China's influence has met growing defiance from citizens who fear the extinction of their valued local identities. However, the book shows that resistance to China's influence …
The Puzzle of Authoritarian Legitimacy
Data from the Asian Barometer Survey show that among fourteen countries surveyed in Waves III and IV (2010–2016), authoritarian regimes enjoy higher Diffuse Regime Support than do democratic regimes. The essay explores the impact on legitimacy of four causal factors: governmental economic and political performance, propaganda, nationalism, and culture. Traditional Social Values (TSV) tend to increase regime legitimacy and Liberal Democratic Value…
Authoritarian Resilience Revisited: Joseph Fewsmith with Response from Andrew J. Nathan
The conventional wisdom in the period following Tiananmen was that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would fall victim to domestic pressures and international economic forces and follow the Soviet Union and other socialist systems onto the ‘dustbin of history.’ But it did not happen. In 2003, Andrew Nathan offered an explanation. The factionalism of the past was weakening in the face of growing professionalism and functional specialization. Polit…
A Factionalism Model for ccp Politics
Until the Cultural Revolution, the predominant western view of contemporary Chinese elite conflict was that it consisted of “discussion” (t'ao-lun) within a basically consensual Politburo among shifting “opinion groups” with no “organized force” behind them. The purges and accusations which began in 1965 and apparently still continue, have shaken this interpretation, and a number of scholars have advanced new analyses - sometimes explicit, someti…
The Place of Values in Cross-Cultural Studies: The Example of Democracy and China
Chinese Political Culture
A Discussion of Daniel A. Bell’s The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy
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Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US–China Rivalry
The rise of China has generated a debate in U.S. policy circles over how to respond to China’s new assertiveness. Those wishing to respond with toughness dominated during the 2015–2016 presidential primary season, vying over who would push back more strongly against Chinese trade infractions, cyberspying, human rights violations, and island building in the South China Sea. But other thinkers have more quietly advised the United States to seek a w…
Globalization as a Security Strategy: Power and Vulnerability in the “China Model”
Journal Article Globalization as a Security Strategy: Power and Vulnerability in the “China Model” Get access Andrew J. Nathan, Andrew J. Nathan ANDREW J. NATHAN is Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Andrew Scobell Andrew Scobell ANDREW SCOBELL is Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation. Search for other works by this author on: O…
Domestic Factors in the Making of Chinese Foreign Policy
The hard logic of China’s geostrategic vulnerability drives Chinese foreign policy. Neither nationalism, power struggles nor interest group politics constrain the elite’s foreign policy decisions. The good news for India is that China’s goals are relatively easy to understand. The bad news is that China seeks more influence in South Asia
The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class
Seymour Martin Lipset argued that economic development would enlarge the middle class, and that the middle class would support democracy. To what extent will this general proposition prove true of China
China’s Challenge
China’s Challenge Andrew J. Nathan (bio) The People’s Republic of China (PRC) under President Xi Jinping has begun to flex its muscles as a major power. Setting aside Deng Xiaoping’s mantra of “hide our light and nurture our strength” and Jiang Zemin’s policy of “increase trust, reduce trouble, develop cooperation, and do not seek confrontation,” Beijing today actively challenges its neighbors. It also confronts U.S. interests in the South and Ea…
China's Search for Security
China at the Tipping Point: Foreseeing the Unforeseeable
The resilience of the Chinese authoritarian regime is approaching its limits. Theories of “threshold models” and “informational cascades” derived from the East German experience may help explain what happens next. China, however, is different from East Germany in several ways. Among other differences, it is not a client state and its economy is growing faster than those of its neighbors. Citizens are better informed about what other people think;…
China's Overstretched Military
Asia's Challenged Democracies
China Since Tiananmen: Authoritarian Impermanence
Like all contemporary nondemocratic systems, the Chinese system suffers from weak legitimacy at the level of regime type. The most likely form of transition for China remains the model of Tiananmen, when three elements came together: a robust plurality of disaffected citizens, a catalytic event, and a split in the leadership. Had China chosen the path of dialogue in 1989, it might be more stable today
How East Asians View Democracy
East Asian democracies are in trouble, their legitimacy threatened by poor policy performance and undermined by nostalgia for the progrowth, soft-authoritarian regimes of the past. Yet citizens throughout the region value freedom, reject authoritarian alternatives, and believe in democracy. This book is the first to report the results of a large-scale survey-research project, the East Asian Barometer, in which eight research teams conducted natio…
Seizing the Opportunity for Change in the Taiwan Strait
Taiwan's presidential election in March will usher in a moderate on cross-strait issues, offering a potential shift in cross-strait relations if Washington and Beijing understand the deceptive change toward moderation in Taiwan and what to do to reinforce it
China: Fragile Superpower by Susan L. Shirk
Imagined Enemies: China Prepares for Uncertain War by John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai
China's Changing of the Guard: Authoritarian Resilience
After the Tiananmen crisis in June, 1989, many observers thought that the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would collapse. Instead, the regime brought inflation under control, restarted economic growth, expanded foreign trade, and increased its absorption of foreign direct investment. It restored normal relations with the G-7 countries that had imposed sanctions, resumed the exchange of summits with the United States, presided over the r…
The Puzzle of Authoritarian Legitimacy
Data from the Asian Barometer Survey show that among fourteen countries surveyed in Waves III and IV (2010–2016), authoritarian regimes enjoy higher Diffuse Regime Support than do democratic regimes. The essay explores the impact on legitimacy of four causal factors: governmental economic and political performance, propaganda, nationalism, and culture. Traditional Social Values (TSV) tend to increase regime legitimacy and Liberal Democratic Value…
China’s Challenge
China’s Challenge Andrew J. Nathan (bio) The People’s Republic of China (PRC) under President Xi Jinping has begun to flex its muscles as a major power. Setting aside Deng Xiaoping’s mantra of “hide our light and nurture our strength” and Jiang Zemin’s policy of “increase trust, reduce trouble, develop cooperation, and do not seek confrontation,” Beijing today actively challenges its neighbors. It also confronts U.S. interests in the South and Ea…
The great wall and the empty fortress: China's search for security
Today China is considered a threat by many in the United States and the rest of the world. But the authors argue that those who subscribe to this alarmist view are mistaking the Great Wall for a symbol of strength, and falling for the deception of the Empty Fortress. Despite its sheer size, economic vitality, and drive to upgrade its military forces, China remains a vulnerable power, crowded on all sides by powerful rivals and potential foes. As …
The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class
Seymour Martin Lipset argued that economic development would enlarge the middle class, and that the middle class would support democracy. To what extent will this general proposition prove true of China
Authoritarian Resilience Revisited: Joseph Fewsmith with Response from Andrew J. Nathan
The conventional wisdom in the period following Tiananmen was that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would fall victim to domestic pressures and international economic forces and follow the Soviet Union and other socialist systems onto the ‘dustbin of history.’ But it did not happen. In 2003, Andrew Nathan offered an explanation. The factionalism of the past was weakening in the face of growing professionalism and functional specialization. Polit…
Factionalism: A New Institutionalist Restatement
Left and Right With Chinese Characteristics: Issues and Alignments in Deng Xiaoping's China
A 1990 national sample survey shows that the Chinese population was concerned with issues relating to reform, economic and social grievances, and democracy. Although neither political issues nor social cleavages were the same as in the West, the same dynamics affected the process of ideological alignment. Social position and cognitive sophistication help explain why members of the population hold liberal or conservative attitudes
A Shared Future for Mankind’: Rhetoric and Reality in Chinese Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping
The phrase ‘work to build a community with a shared future for mankind’ became the guiding slogan of Chinese foreign policy in 2017. Beneath its smooth surface, the concept contains several layers of complex and sometimes contradictory meanings. Among other things, it seeks to position China both as one among many developing countries, treating all as equals, and as a major world leader that exerts influence over other states and the internationa…
China at the Tipping Point: Foreseeing the Unforeseeable
The resilience of the Chinese authoritarian regime is approaching its limits. Theories of “threshold models” and “informational cascades” derived from the East German experience may help explain what happens next. China, however, is different from East Germany in several ways. Among other differences, it is not a client state and its economy is growing faster than those of its neighbors. Citizens are better informed about what other people think;…
China's New Rulers: The Secret Files
At the Chinese Communist Party's 16th Congress in November 2002, a group of new leaders took over the world's most populous country. Their accession as the Fourth Generation of rulers of the People's Republic--following the generations of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zemin--signaled the end of a long, complex struggle for power. Yet little has been known outside high Party circles about either that struggle or the men who emerged victorio…
Is Chinese Culture Distinctive?—A Review Article
Anyone Who Works in the Field of Area Studies knows from experience that cultures are different. Indeed, the effort to understand the distinctiveness of cultures in comparative perspective is a central undertaking of the modern humanities and social sciences, not only in Asian studies but in studies of other parts of the world. But works on the subject seldom discuss the conceptual and methodological issues involved. What do we mean by culture in…
China Since Tiananmen: Authoritarian Impermanence
Like all contemporary nondemocratic systems, the Chinese system suffers from weak legitimacy at the level of regime type. The most likely form of transition for China remains the model of Tiananmen, when three elements came together: a robust plurality of disaffected citizens, a catalytic event, and a split in the leadership. Had China chosen the path of dialogue in 1989, it might be more stable today
The Tiananmen Papers
events of the Beijing Spring of 1989 were amongst the most momentous of China's tumultuous 20th century. What began as a peaceful memorial demonstration following the death of a popular reform leader, soon developed into a massive pro-democracy movement with Tiananmen Square as the focal point. As hundreds of thousands of students and workers poured onto the Beijing streets, the Chinese government responded first by declaring martial law and then…
China's Constitutionalist Option
China’s Constitutionalist Option Andrew J. Nathan (bio) Of the plausible scenarios for China’s future, the possibility of a new constitutionalism has been taken seriously by only a few Western specialists. 1 Yet the constitutionalist scenario gains credibility from the improbability of the alternatives. Civil disorder is the worst fear of most Chinese, and few stand to gain from it. Local separatism would do more economic harm than good to the so…
What's wrong with American Taiwan policy
American efforts to reassure Beijing have confused our Taiwan policy, increasing the risk of war. The United States needs to return to a policy that worked well for a quarter century: combining clarity about ends with “strategic ambiguity” about the means
Popular Political Support in Urban China
Is China Ready for Democracy
Is China Ready for Democracy? Andrew J. Nathan (bio) The Chinese Communist regime has always claimed that China already has, in the words of Deng Xiaoping, the "broadest democracy that has ever existed in history," and that Western-style "bourgeois democracy" is not worth having anyway. But a contradictory theme lies beneath the surface of such defensive rhetoric. Deng has often argued that "national conditions" (guoqing, a code word for backward…
Democratizing Transition in Taiwan
At 6:05 on the evening of September 28, 1986, Taiwan opposition leader Fei Hsi-p'ing stood up in a meeting room of Taipei's Grand Hotel and announced, "The Democratic Progressive Party is established
China's Path from Communism
China's Path from Communism Andrew J. Nathan (bio) Andrew J. Nathan Andrew J. Nathan is professor of political science and director of the East Asian Institute at Columbia University. His most recent trip to China was in October 1992. A version of this article was presented as the Florence Liu Macaulay Distinguished Lecture in Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, 19 January 1993. Notes 1. Samuel P. Huntington, "Democrac…
Imperialism’s effects on China
Three years ago in this journal, James Peck argued that “the professional ideology of America’s China watchers” has tended to blind them to certain approaches to modern Chinese history that might be labelled “revolutionary Marxist” interpretations. As an example, Peck argued that the China watchers have explained China’s nineteenth and early twentieth century difficulties (prolonged economic and military weakness, failed reforms and revolutions) …
Biden’s China Policy: Old Wine in New Bottles
The Biden Administration has accepted the Trump Administration’s definition of China as a ‘strategic competitor’, and has retained Trump’s tariffs, the ‘Quad’, and the upgrade in Taiwan’s protocol status. But Biden’s China policy is different from Trump’s in being truly strategic. The key elements of that strategy are focused on improving the United States’ competitiveness domestically and in international affairs; cooperation with allies and par…
China's Overstretched Military
Asia's Challenged Democracies
The Legislative Yuan Elections in Taiwan: Consequences of the Electoral System
Research Article| April 01 1993 The Legislative Yuan Elections in Taiwan: Consequences of the Electoral System Andrew J. Nathan Andrew J. Nathan Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (1993) 33 (4): 424–438. https://doi.org/10.2307/2645107 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions C…
A History of the China International Famine Relief Commission
A History of the China International Famine Relief Commission
Imperialism’s effects on China
Three years ago in this journal, James Peck argued that “the professional ideology of America’s China watchers” has tended to blind them to certain approaches to modern Chinese history that might be labelled “revolutionary Marxist” interpretations. As an example, Peck argued that the China watchers have explained China’s nineteenth and early twentieth century difficulties (prolonged economic and military weakness, failed reforms and revolutions) …
A Factionalism Model for CCP Politics
Until the Cultural Revolution, the predominant western view of contemporary Chinese elite conflict was that it consisted of “discussion” ( t'ao-lun ) within a basically consensual Politburo among shifting “opinion groups” with no “organized force” behind them. The purges and accusations which began in 1965 and apparently still continue, have shaken this interpretation, and a number of scholars have advanced new analyses - sometimes explicit, some…
Modern China, 1840–1972: An Introduction to Sources and Aids
Graduate students have traditionally learned a good part of what they know about sources and research aids on modern China through hearsay and serendipity, in unsystematic and unreliable bits and pieces. The field has now developed to the point where this need not and ought not to be so. It is now possible for beginning researchers to start with some shared basic knowledge of research aids and documentary resources. This research guide is meant t…
Peking Politics, 1918–1923
China Research, 1895-1949
Review Article| February 01 1976 China Research, 1895–1949 Andrew J. Nathan; Andrew J. Nathan Columbia University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Dan Yakir Dan Yakir Columbia University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Asian Studies (1976) 35 (2): 288–292. https://doi.org/10.2307/2053986 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Sha…
Peking Politics, 1918-1923: Factionalism and the Failure of Constitutionalism
Peking Politics, 1918-1923: Factionalism and the Failure of Constitutionalism
Peking Politics, 1918-1923
The Northern Expedition: China's National Revolution of 1926-1928
China's Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent. by Merle Goldman ; Intellectuals and the State in Modern China: A Narrative History. by Jerome B. Grieder
Journal Article China's Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent. by Merle Goldman; Intellectuals and the State in Modern China: A Narrative History. by Jerome B. Grieder Get access China’s Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent by Merle Goldman. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1981. 276 pp. $22.00Intellectuals and the State in Modern China: A Narrative History by Jerome B. Grieder. New York: Free Press, 1981. 395 pp. $22.50. Andrew J. Nathan Andrew J. …
Organizing China: The Problem of Bureaucracy, 1949-1976, by Harry Harding
Journal Article Organizing China: The Problem of Bureaucracy, 1949-1976, by Harry Harding Get access Organizing China: The Problem of Bureaucracy, 1949-1976 by Harry Harding. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1981. 418 pp. $29.50. Andrew J. Nathan Andrew J. Nathan Columbia University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 97, Issue 4, Winter 1982, Pages 746–747, http…
Popular Culture in Late Imperial China
Chinese Democracy
Sources of Chinese Rights Thinking
Human Rights in Contemporary China
The Political Consequences of China's Reforms
Ten years have now passed since the calamitous year of 1976, when Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Mao Zedong all died, Deng Xiaoping fell for the second time, and the Gang of Four went down once and for all. The of sweeping reform that followed that watershed year has been as momentous as the Cultural Revolution decade which preceded it. The question now is how profoundly this period of reform has altered Chinese politics. The books reviewed in this arti…
Democratizing Transition in Taiwan
At 6:05 on the evening of September 28, 1986, Taiwan opposition leader Fei Hsi-p'ing stood up in a meeting room of Taipei's Grand Hotel and announced, "The Democratic Progressive Party is established
Chinese Democracy
Popular Culture in Late Imperial China
Chinese Democracy
China's Crisis: Dilemmas of Reform and Prospects for Democracy
Is China Ready for Democracy
Is China Ready for Democracy? Andrew J. Nathan (bio) The Chinese Communist regime has always claimed that China already has, in the words of Deng Xiaoping, the "broadest democracy that has ever existed in history," and that Western-style "bourgeois democracy" is not worth having anyway. But a contradictory theme lies beneath the surface of such defensive rhetoric. Deng has often argued that "national conditions" (guoqing, a code word for backward…
Toward a Democratic China: The Intellectual Autobiography of Yan Jiaqi
Political science (76 works) · Law (73 works) · China (60 works) · Law (50 works) · Politics (45 works) · Sociology (38 works) · Chinese history and philosophy (37 works) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance (29 works) · History (28 works) · Economics (26 works)