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

"Tom Christensen has done us a great service: He has decoded the U.S.-China relationship with the analytical power of a great scholar and the real-world lessons of a policymaker. The China Challenge is lucid, learned, and relentlessly sensible, navigating the great predicament of the 21st century. Christensen is fluent in history but never captive to it. He aims not to prevent China's rise but to shape it with a mix of strength and moderation. Above all, he shows us how to avoid a conflict that he considers possible but, in no way, inevitable. He made a believer out of me." -- Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition "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 Distinguished Service Professor, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, and author of Is the American Century Over? "There is no one I would rather read on China than Tom Christensen. He has the rare ability to transcend the conventional either/or debates about China and to see the country simultaneously as a power with the potential to disrupt global politics in many negative ways and as a country that the United States must engage as a partner in solving global problems. He also has a deep and much needed understanding of how Chinese domestic politics shape Chinese foreign policy. If you read only one book on China, make it The China Challenge." -- Anne-Marie Slaughter, New America Foundation "Everything you need to know about the sometimes bewildering, always tricky issues generated by the rise of China are 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 "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 President of the World Bank, US Trade Representative, and US Deputy Secretary of State "Tom Christensen has written a book that displays the ideal mix of 'richness, rigor, and relevance'. Countering naive 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 naive 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, The Laine Professor of China in World Affairs, Harvard University "Tom Christensen is one of the world's leading China experts, an experienced senior policymaker, and a top-notch international relations theorist. His new book on how to handle a rising China is outstanding, a must-read for anybody interested in China, American foreign policy, or global affairs more generally." -- Gideon Rose, Editor, Foreign Affairs

Many see China's rise as a threat to US 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. 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.