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Title details for Overreach by Susan L. Shirk - Available

Overreach

How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise

by Susan L. Shirk
ebook
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3 of 3 copies available
Winner, The Lionel Gelber Prize Silver Medal, Arthur Ross Book Award For decades, China's rise to power was characterized by its reassurance that this rise would be peaceful. Then, as Susan L. Shirk, shows in this sobering, clear-eyed account of China today, something changed. For three decades after Mao's death in 1976, China's leaders adopted a restrained approach to foreign policy. They determined that any threat to their power, and that of the Chinese Communist Party, came not from abroad but from within—a conclusion cemented by the 1989 Tiananmen crisis. To facilitate the country's inexorable economic ascendence, and to prevent a backlash, they reassured the outside world of China's peaceful intentions. Then, as Susan Shirk shows in this illuminating, disturbing, and utterly persuasive new book, something changed. China went from fragile superpower to global heavyweight, threatening Taiwan as well as its neighbors in the South China Sea, tightening its grip on Hong Kong, and openly challenging the United States for preeminence not just economically and technologically but militarily. China began to overreach. Combining her decades of research and experience, Shirk, one of the world's most respected experts on Chinese politics, argues that we are now fully embroiled in a new cold war. To explain what happened, Shirk pries open the "black box" of China's political system and looks at what derailed its peaceful rise. As she shows, the shift toward confrontation began in the mid-2000s under the mild-mannered Hu Jintao, first among equals in a collective leadership. As China's economy boomed, especially after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, Hu and the other leaders lost restraint, abetting aggression toward the outside world and unchecked domestic social control. When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he capitalized on widespread official corruption and open splits in the leadership to make the case for more concentrated power at the top. In the decade following, and to the present day—the eve of the 20th CCP Congress when he intends to claim a third term—he has accumulated greater power than any leader since Mao. Those who implement Xi's directives compete to outdo one another, provoking an even greater global backlash and stoking jingoism within China on a scale not seen since the Cultural Revolution. Here is a devastatingly lucid portrait of China today. Shirk's extensive interviews and meticulous analysis reveal the dynamics driving overreach. To counter it, she argues, the worst mistake the rest of the world, and the United States in particular, can make is to overreact. Understanding the domestic roots of China's actions will enable us to avoid the mistakes that could lead to war.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 7, 2022

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780190068530

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780190068530
      • File size: 2199 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      August 15, 2022
      A key observer of China provides a detailed account of that nation's political transformation under its current leaders. Shirk, who has been studying China for several decades, served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs during the Clinton administration, and her 2007 book, China: Fragile Superpower, was highly influential. The author builds on the earlier volume but focuses on how China has changed in the past decade. The key player has been Xi Jinping, who replaced the mild-mannered Hu Jintao and has exploited leadership divisions to dispense with the tradition of collective rule and entrench himself as leader-for-life. The governing class enthusiastically backed Xi, concluding that democracy, even if only at the local level, would eventually be a threat to their power and privileges. There has long been a stream of Chinese thinking that envisions the country's destiny as being the preeminent global power, but it was the economic boom that provided the strength to effectively shape its foreign policy. Under Xi, China began to throw its weight around, especially over Hong Kong and the South China Sea. This was the point of overreach, writes Shirk, as Xi and his administration failed to realize that the rest of the world was not going to accept Chinese dominance--at least not without significant push back. To improve China's reputation, Shirk offers advice to Xi, such as opening a dialogue with Taiwan and closing the internment camps in Xinjiang. Given the current state of the Chinese government, these moves are highly unlikely, making them odd inclusions in a text about how China's leaders are intent on gathering ever more power into their hands. Perhaps Shirk simply wanted the book to end on a hopeful note. While dauntingly detailed in spots, the book is the work of an expert on the subject and should be useful for policymakers. An authoritative account of how China is seeking to become the world's dominant power.

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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