The Sanlian Bookstore, one of the bigger and better bookstores in Beijing, has a somewhat academic bent. Here is the bestseller list posted in the bookstore on June 4. The list is for the week May 24 - May 30. The Sanlian Beijing store has computer inventory control, so putting together a bestseller list for the previous week must be fairly easy for them. This list is necessarily impressionistic since it just reflects the sales at one of the larger bookstores in Beijing.
1) New Capitalism by Feng Yun (Social Sciences Publishing House).. sold out
2) The Coming Conflict with China by Richard Bernstein and Ross Munroe (according to the publication page published in Chinese translation in 1997 in an edition of 6000 copies.... maybe it has been hanging in the back rooms for a while, now the time has come to clean it out?) (#7 the previous week)
3) Class: A Guide to the American Status System by Paul Fussell (originally published in the USA in 1983) (#7 or so last week)
4) New China Transportation Map
5) SAS Survival Manual (Chinese translation of British commando wilderness survivial manual)
6) Poetry by Wang Li (the great Chinese linguist) (no. 2 last week)
7) From Hippies to Yuppies: A Personal Account of the Sexual Revolution by James Clifden (surname retranslated from Chinese, may be off slightly) (also in about this place last week)
8) A book full of the cartoons of Feng Zikai
9) Old Photographs #9 ninth in a very popular series of photographs of late 19th Century and early 20th Century China.
10) New China Dictionary (no. 1 last week)
11) Contract Law of the PRC
in the rankings in the teens zone: several books about ancient Egypt and Rome
at #25 Who Will Win the Next War by Zhang Zhaozhong
at #30 "China Will Not Be Insulted" a collection of Xinhua stories about the Embassy bombing. It was #1 the previous week.
Not appearing on the list but at #8 last week as "Unfinished War Diary" by the husband-and-wife Xinhua reporters who were killed when the U.S. missiles hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. That book contains many pictures of the young couple, including their wedding picture of about a year ago, as well as some of their reports on the war in Yugoslavia.
An Overview of "Who Will Win the Next War" by National Defense University Professor Zhang Zhaodong
Who Will Win the Next War by Zhang Zhaozhong published in March, 1998 by Youth Publishing House. (number #8 last week) . This book, published in March 1999 is by a prominent PRC defense analyst. Zhang Zhaodong served for 30 years in the PRC Navy and is now is a professor and director of the S&T Research Office at National Defense University. Zhang examines the latest weapons technologies as they were used in December 1998 against Iraq and in the Gulf War. The greatest threat comes now from the air. Zhang discusses “fire and forget” missiles, laser weapons, stealth weaponry, and the recent revival from the ashes of the old Star Wars plan. Zhang discusses the lessons of the six nation naval semi-annual exercises held around Hawaii in July-August 1998.
Will aircraft carriers be obsolete in the 21st Century? Mushroom clouds over South Asia: India and Pakistan. Chinese scientists have shown that superstitions like Nostradamus’ prediction that the world will end on August 19, 1999 are wrong. Peace and stability look to be the main trends in the early 21st century, so a major war is unlikely and many of the big countries continue to reduce their armaments and military budgets, but some military confrontations are quite possible. How will China face the Pacific Century? The Pacific Ocean isn’t very pacific: the U.S. depends on island bases as unsinkable aircraft carriers. How should China prepare to win the next war? Continued reform is essential to building China’s strength. The 1300 page April 1992 U.S. DoD final report on the Gulf War gives excellent insights into U.S. military thinking and strategy. The increasing stress on high technology weaponry is clear. The U.S is building the informatized military of the 21st Century and using reorganization to boost effectiveness.
China should move from concentrating on quantity to concentrating on quality of weaponry. Government decisionmakers and technical advisory departments should be kept distinct in order to avoid conflicts of interest. Military authority should not be divided by service but rather all military elements in a certain region should be under a unified command. This will be especially important in the task of protecting China’s 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone and 350 km continental shelf zone which became effective when the UN Law of the Sea officially took effect in 1994. Strenghening military procurement and merging military and civilian product standards so that the military can procure from the civilian market is an important trend of the 1990s.