Product Description

Clear, comprehensive, and well-balanced, this unique assessment takes the measure of what is arguably the most important geopolitical change in today's world: the growth of China's power. In the only book on the subject to be based on extensive interviews with elite political leaders, diplomats, and others in China, the United States, and countries on China's periphery, David M. Lampton investigates the military, economic, and intellectual dimensions of China's growing influence. His account provides a fresh perspective from which to assess China--how its strengths are changing, where vulnerabilities and uncertainties lie, and how the rest of the world, not least the United States, should view it. Lampton gives a valuable historical framework by discussing how the Chinese have thought about state power for over 2,500 years, and he asks how they are thinking about the future use of power through instruments such as their space program. He also provides broad suggestions for policy toward China in light of the 2008 elections in the United States and China's hosting of the Olympic Games, in a book that is essential reading for understanding one of the most significant developments of the twenty-first century.

From the Inside Flap

"By learning more not only about China, but from China, America is more likely to sustain a constructive relationship with the rising China. Lampton insightfully provides us with the much-needed guidance."-Zbigniew Brzezinski, Center for Strategic and International Studies

"Professor Lampton's stimulating and well-researched book provides a comprehensive framework for intelligent thinking about the implications for the United States and the world of the rapid expansion of China's economic and military power. Serious students of world affairs and non-specialists concerned about the outlook for U.S.-China relations will all benefit from the historically-based insights and judgments that fill the pages of this thought-provoking volume."--J. Stapleton Roy, former United States ambassador to China

David M. Lampton (born 1946) is George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies at Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is Director of China Studies at SAIS. He is Former President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations in New York City. He currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the National Bureau of Asian Research.

He is author of Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 (UC Press) and editor of The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Age of Reform, among many other books and articles on Chinese domestic and foreign affairs.

On June 17, 2010 The National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars awarded Lampton the inaugural Scalapino Prize, an award established in honor of renowned Asia scholar Robert A. Scalapino. Presented at the 2010 Asia Policy Assembly in Washington, D.C., the award was given to Lampton in recognition of his contributions to America’s understanding of the vast changes underway in Asia.