Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China
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4.0 • 15 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A provocative and urgent analysis of the U.S.–China rivalry.
It has become conventional wisdom that America and China are running a “superpower marathon” that may last a century. Yet Hal Brands and Michael Beckley pose a counterintuitive question: What if the sharpest phase of that competition is more like a decade-long sprint?
The Sino-American contest is driven by clashing geopolitical interests and a stark ideological dispute over whether authoritarianism or democracy will dominate the 21st century. But both history and China’s current trajectory suggest that this rivalry will reach its moment of maximum danger in the 2020s.
China is at a perilous moment: strong enough to violently challenge the existing order, yet losing confidence that time is on its side. Numerous examples from antiquity to the present show that rising powers become most aggressive when their fortunes fade, their difficulties multiply, and they realize they must achieve their ambitions now or miss the chance to do so forever. China has already started down this path. Witness its aggression toward Taiwan, its record-breaking military buildup, and its efforts to dominate the critical technologies that will shape the world’s future.
Over the long run, the Chinese challenge will most likely prove more manageable than many pessimists currently believe—but during the 2020s, the pace of Sino-American conflict will accelerate, and the prospect of war will be frighteningly real. America, Brands and Beckley argue, will still need a sustainable approach to winning a protracted global competition. But first, it needs a near-term strategy for navigating the danger zone ahead.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tufts political scientist Beckley (Unrivaled) and Johns Hopkins global affairs scholar Brands (coauthor, The Lessons of Tragedy) deliver a robust reconsideration of Chinese-American relations. Sketching the scenario of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2025, the authors argue that such an attack would not be the "inevitable outcome of China's growing strength and confidence," but a gamble made by Chinese leaders fearful that the country is on the cusp of decline. According to Beckley and Brands, China is rapidly approaching a "slow-motion demographic catastrophe" brought about by the decades-long "One Child Policy." The authors also note that China's historic enemy, Japan, is engaged in a massive military buildup supported by the U.S. and contend that bad loans made through China's Belt and Road Initiative will result in "hundreds of billions of dollars in losses." To combat the threat of Chinese aggression, Beckley and Brands call on U.S. leaders to follow President Truman's strategy of countering Soviet influence in the years after WWII. Specifically, they advocate for the hacking of China's censorship and surveillance systems and the establishment of a "free-world economic bloc" that can outspend China on research and development. Though the authors underplay the risks involved, they provide plenty of evidence that China is not as mighty as it seems. The result is a provocative and noteworthy contribution to the debate over what the U.S. should do about China.
