Editor's Note: Dongping Han is Professor of History and Political Science at Warren Wilson College, Asheville, North Carlina.

Ben Mah’s America and China is an excellent addition to the literature in field of China studies.  People who are interested in China and world politics will benefit tremendously from Ben Mah’s contribution.
            Ben Mah was born in China , but was educated in Canada .  Influenced by his father, Mah paid close attention to Chinese affairs and U.S. and China relations since childhood.   As a professional investor in adulthood, Mah has studied very closely the business operations of multinational corporations in China and other third world countries.  Personal and professional interests combined to enable Mah to see Chinese politics and US-China relations in very unique perspectives.
            Ben Mah is no bookworm in an ivory tower. Unlike normal ivory tower scholars, he does not engage in theoretical elaboration.  He sees China and U.S.-China relations as they are, and discussed them and their implications in a very straightforward manner with a very clear stand on all the issues involved.
           Ben Mah lived and worked in the western world for many years, and has a very deep understanding of U.S. and Western political and economic systems.   Many Chinese officials and scholars who have never been to the U.S. and the western world are imagining the beauty and wealth of the capitalist U.S.  There are also Chinese officials and scholars who visited the U.S. and the Western world for a brief time and began to admire the tall buildings, big cars, and big homes American people owned.  They do not see the structural flaws of capitalist system.   They do not see the huge homeless population in the big cities in the U.S.   They are not aware that in the most affluent country of the world, there exist 45 million Americans who are hungry on any given day and who do not have medical insurance as well.  A friend of mine gave a talk recently on Tibet.  He said that the Chinese Communist Government treated the Tibetans so badly that one out of nine of Tibetan youth was in prison.  When the audience received his remarks very warmly, he added: but that statistics was not true.  But it is a true statistics that one out of nine African American youth is in prison.  One system that reincarnates such a high percentage of its minority population needs to be questioned. American government officials enjoy picking on China and other third world countries about their human rights records, but they are simply incapable of seeing the human rights abuses in their own country, nor are they capable of envisioning doing something about it.   With his deep understanding, Mah provides his reader a much more objective portrayal of the U.S. and Western world in general.
            I recommend this book to my students and the general public because I believe that the reader will be able to learn a great deal from Ben’s book on contemporary Chinese politics and U.S.-China relations.  In the eyes of many Chinese and Americans, China’s rise in the world is inevitable.  In light of that assessment, some American elites see the need to deal with a China threat.  Contrary to that assessment, Ben sees the Chinese people’s gradual loss of control of their destiny as the international capital through the hands of multinational corporations entrench its position in China.  The globalization is destroying the China’s environment and enslaving its people.  As Chinese government talks about connecting with the world and creating harmony in the world, it seems that there is a need for the Chinese people and for the people in the world who want peace and justice in this world to wake up to the threats imposed by the international capital’s drive for profit which is spiraling out of control.