An emerging star in the field of US-China policy pairs leading scholars from both the US and China in dialogues about the most crucial elements of the relationship.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER | NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR. From an eminent international security scholar, an urgent examination of the conditions that could produce a catastrophic conflict between the United States and China—and how it might be prevented. China and the United States are heading toward a war neither wants. The reason is Thucydides’s Trap: when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling one, violence is the likeliest result. Over the past five hundred years, these conditions have occurred sixteen times; war broke out in twelve. At the time of publication, an unstoppable China approached an immovable America, and both Xi Jinping and Donald Trump promised to make their countries “great again,” the seventeenth case was looking grim—it still is. A trade conflict, cyberattack, Korean crisis, or accident at sea could easily spark a major war. In Destined for War, eminent Harvard scholar Graham Allison masterfully blends history and current events to explain the timeless machinery of Thucydides’s Trap—and to explore the painful steps that might prevent disaster today. SHORT-LISTED FOR THE 2018 LIONEL GELBER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: FINANCIAL TIMES * THE TIMES (LONDON)* AMAZON “Allison is one of the keenest observers of international affairs around.” — President Joe Biden “[A] must-read book in both Washington and Beijing.” — Boston Globe “[Full of] wide-ranging, erudite case studies that span human history . . . [A] fine book.”— New York Times Book Review

One issue could lead to a disastrous war between the United States and China: Taiwan. A growing number of Taiwanese want independence for their island and regard mainland China as an alien nation. Mainland Chinese consider Taiwan a province that was stolen from China more than a century ago, and their patience about getting it back is wearing thin. Washington officially endorses a "one China" policy but also sells arms to Taiwan and maintains an implicit pledge to defend it from attack. That vague, muddled policy invites miscalculation by Taiwan or China or both. The three parties are on a collision course, and unless something dramatic changes, an armed conflict is virtually inevitable within a decade. Although there is still time to avert a calamity, time is running out. In this book, Carpenter tells the reader what the U.S. must do quickly to avoid being dragged into war.

Americans look to China with fascination and fear, unsure whether it is friend or foe but certain it will play a crucial role in their future. This is nothing new, Gordon Chang says. Fateful Ties draws on literature, art, biography, popular culture, and politics to trace America’s long and varied preoccupation with China.

A timely, provocative exposé of American political and business leadership’s deep ties to China: a network of people who believe they are doing the right thing—at a profound and often hidden cost to U.S. interests. The past few years have seen relations between China and the United States shift, from enthusiastic economic partners, to wary frenemies, to open rivals. Americans have been slow to wake up to the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Why did this happen? And what can we do about it? In America Second, Isaac Stone Fish traces the evolution of the Party’s influence in America. He shows how America’s leaders initially welcomed China’s entry into the U.S. economy, believing that trade and engagement would lead to a more democratic China. And he explains how—although this belief has proved misguided--many of our businesspeople and politicians have become too dependent on China to challenge it. America Second exposes a deep network of Beijing’s influence in America, built quietly over the years through prominent figures like former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, Disney chairman Bob Iger, and members of the Bush family. And it shows how to fight that influence–without being paranoid, xenophobic, or racist. This is an authoritative and important story of corruption and good intentions gone wrong, with serious implications not only for the future of the United States, but for the world at large.

A remarkable history of the two-centuries-old relationship between the United States and China, from the Revolutionary War to the present day From the clipper ships that ventured to Canton hauling cargos of American ginseng to swap Chinese tea, to the US warships facing off against China's growing navy in the South China Sea, from the Yankee missionaries who brought Christianity and education to China, to the Chinese who built the American West, the United States and China have always been dramatically intertwined. For more than two centuries, American and Chinese statesmen, merchants, missionaries, and adventurers, men and women, have profoundly influenced the fate of these nations. While we tend to think of America's ties with China as starting in 1972 with the visit of President Richard Nixon to China, the patterns—rapturous enchantment followed by angry disillusionment—were set in motion hundreds of years earlier. Drawing on personal letters, diaries, memoirs, government documents, and contemporary news reports, John Pomfret reconstructs the surprising, tragic, and marvelous ways Americans and Chinese have engaged with one another through the centuries. A fascinating and thrilling account, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom is also an indispensable book for understanding the most important—and often the most perplexing—relationship between any two countries in the world.

With the ever-expanding presence of China in the global economy, Americans more and more look east for goods and trade. But as Caroline Frank reveals, this is not a new development. China loomed as large in the minds—and account books—of eighteenth-century Americans as it does today. Long before they had achieved independence from Britain and were able to sail to Asia themselves, American mariners, merchants, and consumers were aware of the East Indies and preparing for voyages there. Focusing on the trade and consumption of porcelain, tea, and chinoiserie, Frank shows that colonial Americans saw themselves as part of a world much larger than just Britain and Europe Frank not only recovers the widespread presence of Chinese commodities in early America and the impact of East Indies trade on the nature of American commerce, but also explores the role of the this trade in American state formation. She argues that to understand how Chinese commodities fueled the opening acts of the Revolution, we must consider the power dynamics of the American quest for china—and China—during the colonial period. Filled with fresh and surprising insights, this ambitious study adds new dimensions to the ongoing story of America’s relationship with China.