The China Challenge - Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power - Hardcover

Thomas J. Christensen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393081133 ISBN 13: 9780393081138

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015

Synopsis

Many see China s rise as a threat to U.S. leadership in Asia and beyond. Thomas J. Christensen argues instead that the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while eliciting its global cooperation. Drawing on decades of scholarship and experience as a senior diplomat, Christensen offers a deep perspective on China s military and economic capacity. Assessing China s political outlook and strategic goals, Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party s decisions about regional and global affairs. If China obstructs international efforts to confront nuclear proliferation, civil conflicts, financial instability, and climate change, those efforts will likely fail; but if China merely declines to support such efforts, the problems will grow vastly more complicated. Articulating a balanced strategic approach along with perceptive historical analysis, Christensen describes how we might shape China s choices in the coming decades so that it contributes more to the international system from which it benefits so much."

About this title

Review:

The rise of China is one of the prime challenges for American foreign policy. Thomas Christensen uses his first rate credentials both as a scholar and a practitioner to give a clear and compelling answer to this challenge.--Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Harvard University, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense

Christensen...[offers] a model of judicious analysis: Carefully deconstructing the economic, military and diplomatic balances between the United States and China, he reveals the magnitude of the latter's challenge without inflating it.--Ali Wyne

Many books are written about China these days. This is a standout. Christensen is a widely respected scholar who served as the Bush administration's expert on China. He has combined these perspectives to give us a balanced, informative, and highly intelligent guide to dealing with China.--Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American World

Christensen addresses a vital challenge--US policy toward China--with an artful blend of scholarship, modern history, and diplomatic experience. He explains skillfully why the United States needs an adroit combination of national strength, international partnerships, and cooperation with China. Christensen's aim: a search for mutual interests, both between the two countries and in support of regional and global systems.--Robert B. Zoellick, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State

Everything you need to know about the sometimes bewildering, always tricky issues generated by the rise of China is here in Tom Christensen's lucid book. China is something new in the world, a rising authoritarian state that is an economic colossus and very nearly a first-rate military power, which is what makes it the most important strategic challenge we''re going to face for the foreseeable future. Christensen doesn't promise that dealing with China will be easy. It won't be. But he is utterly clear-headed, realistic, persuasive, and, perhaps most important, cautiously optimistic, as he resets the terms of the continuing debate.--Richard Bernstein, author of China 1945

Dr. Christensen gives us a detailed history and critique of recent Sino-US relations, thoughtful evaluations of the views of other scholars and an insider's view of dealing with China on important issues. His balanced judgments on the difficulties and possibilities of Sino-US relations in the future are sobering but eventually hopeful. Anyone seriously interested in one of the most consequential bilateral relationships that will shape the world''s future needs to read this book.--Dennis Blair, Former Commander in Chief, US Pacific Command and Director of National Intelligence

Tom Christensen has written a book that displays the ideal mix of ''richness, rigor, and relevance.'' Countering naïve neo-conservative and liberal interventionists who seem to think that threats to an adversary's vital interests are all you need to induce compliance, and naïve rationalist liberals who believe economic and institutional engagement will largely contain revisionist preferences, Christensen shows from a careful empirical analysis of Chinese foreign policy how stable coexistence in US-China relations rests on a delicate balance of both deterrence and reassurance. Hopefully future US decision makers will read this book and absorb its message.--Alastair Iain Johnston, Laine Professor of China in World Affairs, Harvard University

About the Author:

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Thomas J. Christensen is the William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics and director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0393081133
• ISBN 13: 9780393081138
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352