Has China Won? and Superpower Showdown

HAS CHINA WON? by Kishore Mahbubani offers international perspective on “The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy.”  Mahbubani, currently a Distinguished Fellow at the National University of Singapore's Asia Research Institute, draws on his diplomatic and scholarly expertise to craft a book one of whose goals is “to promote hardheaded, rational thinking on an inevitably complex and shifting subject.” To that end, he raises numerous questions, such as

• Could America’s GNP become smaller than China’s in the next thirty years? If so, what strategic changes will America have to make when it no longer is the world’s dominant economic power?
• Is it wise for America to continue investing heavily in its defense budget? … And instead invest more in improving social services and rejuvenating national infrastructure?
• Can America build up a solid global coalition to counterbalance China [and its Belt and Road Initiative, for example], if it also alienates its key allies?
• Does American society have the inherent strength and stamina to match China’s long-term game?

Having read Geography of Thought many years ago, I find Mahbubani’s advice - “the most important job for a strategic thinker is to try to step into the mind of the adversary” - to be consistent and refreshingly thought-provoking. His own intriguing claims are certainly debatable, as when he notes that “treating the new China challenge as akin to the old Soviet strategy, America is making the classic strategic mistake of fighting tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s strategies” or “the contest with China was with a power that was ‘non-Caucasian’ … [which is] driving the emotional reactions to China.” 

To be sure, this text offers what Fareed Zakaria describes as “views that most Americans will find challenging and controversial.” All the more reason to stretch our students’ critical thinking skills by reading and discussing an excerpt or two. Plus, looking at international reviews for HAS CHINA WON? like those in The Financial Times or The Australian Financial Review will provide additional viewpoints to consider. Recently, Mahbubani published a piece in The Economist (April 2020) which he began by saying, “The West’s incompetent response to the pandemic will hasten the power-shift to the East.” What do you think? 

SUPERPOWER SHOWDOWN by Bob Davis and Lingling Wei explores “How the Battle Between Trump and Xi Threatens a New Cold War.” Both Davis and Wei are award-winning journalists for The Wall Street Journal; they base their book “primarily on hundreds of interviews in Washington and Beijing over the past two years,” although they acknowledge in a note to readers that many comments are not directly attributed to a particular individual due to the assurances of anonymity.  Early in the book Davis and Wei describe the “serious miscalculations” by both sides as they negotiated in the late Spring of 2019. They note how “Donald Trump started the biggest trade war since the 1930s with only a superficial understanding of how China worked, and without a specific goal in mind or a plan to achieve success.” Although a limited deal was reached earlier this year, they feel that “the Chinese leadership finds it increasingly difficult to cut a deal with Washington, whoever is president, without being seen as caving.” To support their thesis, Davis and Wei trace developments from the 1980s through early 2020, complete with extensive notes and an index. 

A fascinating read that is very well-written, SUPERPOWER SHOWDOWN received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Davis and Wei say, “think of this [China-US relationship] as a romance gone bad;” for a related opinion piece, see Thomas Friedman’s “China and America Are Heading Toward Divorce” and also the latest Pew Research data on increasingly negative American attitudes towards China. 

Note: some of the above links lead to password protected articles on a database.