The Coming Conflict with China - Softcover

Bernstein, Richard; Munro, Ross H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679776621 ISBN 13: 9780679776628

Publisher: Vintage, 1998

Synopsis

From two former Beijing bureau chiefs with long experience in Asian affairs comes a clear-eyed and uncompromising look at the potentially disastrous collision course now taking shape in U.S.-China relations. Aggressively anti-American, China has nuclear weapons deliberately targeted at the United States. Recent confrontations between Chinese and American military forces indicate that China may try to take Taiwan by force. While our trade deficit rises to unprecedented heights, the powerful new china lobby shapes U.S. policy with the support of American businesses eager for a share of its booming markets. The Coming Conflict with China is required reading for those who wish to understand the tense global rivalry that is already shaping the course of the 21st century.
"Plunges harpoons into the tenderest interstices of the Chinese-American relationship."--New York Times
"Disturbing and provocative...There is plenty to worry about."--Wall Street Journal

About this title

Review

Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro have pooled their extensive experience observing China to produce a shocking account of what they believe will be the "the major global rivalry in the first decades of the twenty-first century, the rivalry that will force other countries to take sides." The authors describe an inevitable conflict between an aggressive and expansionist China that sees itself as the rightful arbiter of power in Asia and a naive and unprepared United States that has already entered three wars in the last half century to prevent any single country's domination of Asia. In previously unpublished reports of Chinese news sources, Bernstein and Munro thoroughly document how the Chinese press portrays the United States as the "Enemy" in no uncertain terms.

Like Alastair Iain Johnston's superb study of Chinese military culture, Cultural Realism, Bernstein and Munro do not stoop to unfair characterization of the Chinese culture or the Chinese people. The grounds for their thesis--that the United States and China are on a collision course over strategic national goals--are well documented in their book. Their argument is particularly strong in its consideration of how China can use its economic influence to curb other nations such as Japan and South Korea. Certain to be the most controversial book published on the subject of Sino-American relations for some time, The Coming Conflict with China makes for a thrilling, troubling read.

About the Author

Richard Bernstein has been a reporter, culture critic, and commentator for more than 30 years. He was a foreign correspondent in Asia and Europe for Time magazine and The New York Times, and was the first Beijing bureau chief for Time. He is the author of many books on Chinese and Asian themes, among them The Coming Conflict with China and Ultimate Journey, the latter of which was a New York Times Best Book of the Year. He is also the author of Out of the Blue: A Narrative of September 11, 2001, which was named by The Boston Globe as one of the seven best books of 2002. He lives in New York.

Writer and scholar, Ross H. Munro is the coauthor of The Coming Conflict with China, the first major book to argue that the People's Republic of China had emerged as a true rival to America. The New York Times recognized it as one of the most notable books of 1997, and it has been translated into over five languages.  Munro has been a recognized expert in China and Chinese culture since the mid-70's, when he was the bureau chief of the Toronto Globe and Mail.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0679776621
• ISBN 13: 9780679776628
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272