A CONTEST FOR SUPREMACY – China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia

By Aaron L. Friedberg
360 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $27.95.

Published: September 23, 2011

It seems inevitable that Chinese-­American relations will increasingly come to preoccupy the world. The United States continues to be the only global superpower, but in the not-too-distant future China promises to acquire the status of an equal or near equal. How this relationship evolves during a period when the balance of power between them is shifting so rapidly is inevitably a cause for concern.

To be sure, there is at least one important source of encouragement. Ever since the Nixon-Mao rapprochement in the 1970s, the relationship between the two countries has been remarkably stable, notwithstanding the many changes of leadership and the numerous twists and turns of history. The future, though, promises to be different.
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