White - The China Choice: Why America Should Share Power

Published by Black Inc.,

an imprint of Schwartz Media Pty Ltd

3739 Langridge Street

Collingwood VIC 3066 Australia

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Copyright Hugh White 2013

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

White, Hugh.

The China choice : why America should share power / Hugh White.

ISBN for eBook edition: 9781922231079

ISBN for print edition: 9781863956093 (pbk.)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

International relations China--Foreign relations--United States. United States--Foreign relations--China. Australia--Foreign relations. Australia--Government policy.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE CHINA CHOICE

Hugh Whites book offers the finest synthesis to date of all the major questions facing East Asia. It is a provocative work imbued with intellectual integrity. It is about the biggest question in international affairs the future relationship between the United States and China. And the authors conclusions will satisfy no one, which is as it should be. ROBERT D. KAPLAN, chief geopolitical analyst for Stratfor and author of Monsoon and The Revenge of Geography

This thoughtful, thought-provoking and highly readable book by a leading expert on Asian affairs cogently lays out the rationale for a power-sharing accommodation between the United States and China in East Asia, despite the inherent difficulty of the task and the wrenching changes in existing relationships that would be required. In doing so, the author provides a coherent and closely reasoned framework for informed thinking about the policy challenge for the United States of Chinas re-emergence as a great Asian power. J. STAPLETON ROY, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States and former US ambassador to China

The future of the USChina relationship is the single most significant and dangerous international issue of our time. Hugh Whites book is a brilliant and incisive analysis of that relationship and contains vitally important recommendations for how its dangers may be avoided and peace secured. It is indispensable reading for both policy-makers and students of current affairs. ANATOL LIEVEN, Kings College London, author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism

White marches us through the hard strategic implications of sustained economic growth in China. This clear and compelling book helps Australians to move beyond todays sentiment and wishful thinking, and to consider realistically the choices that we face. ROSS GARNAUT, former Australian ambassador to China and author of Australia and the Northeast Asian Ascendancy and the Garnaut Climate Change Review

Because I see many so many aspects of Chinese and US policy in a different light from the one Hugh White sheds on them in his book, I am the more sincere in urging attention to his analysis. Americans in particular will find it valuable to consider this trenchant assessment from a sympathetic but clinically detached perspective. Agree or disagree in the end, readers will be better off for understanding Whites case. JAMES FALLOWS, national correspondent for The Atlantic and author of Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China and China Airborne

Every student of Asian geopolitics will benefit from reflecting on the arguments in The China Choice . WALTER RUSSELL MEAD, editor-at-large of The American Interest

Hugh White makes a compelling case for the United States and its allies accepting that treating China as a power-sharing equal is the only rational response to its breathtaking rise. His detailed prescriptions leave much to contest, but the core argument that any continued assertion of American primacy in Asia is bound to end in tears is almost unanswerable. The China Choice makes a lucid and hugely stimulating contribution to a debate we can no longer avoid. GARETH EVANS, foreign minister of Australia 198896 and president emeritus of the International Crisis Group

White brings erudition and a first-rate intellect, without the baggage of prejudice, to analyse the single most important issue that will determine whether Australia lives in a peaceable environment in the years ahead a must-read. BOB HAWKE, prime minister of Australia 198391