A Contest for Supremacy
“However absorbed a commander may be in the elaboration of his own thoughts,” Winston Churchill counseled, “it is necessary sometimes to take the enemy into consideration.” In this book, Aaron Friedberg of Princeton University serves a bracing tonic of realism, devoid of diplomatic “happy talk,” about the Sino-American contest for mastery in Asia. Having served from 2003-2005 as Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs and Director of Policy Planning in the Office of the Vice President, Friedberg disclaims membership in the Sinologist “fraternity” and sets out to speak candidly about the central struggle of our time. Acknowledging the tentativeness of his argument, he nonetheless believes this subject is too important to be left to the “China hands.”
America and China, Friedberg maintains, are engaged in a global struggle for power, rooted in geopolitical and ideological causes. No economic determinist, he argues the decisive factor is political, a clash between America’s liberal-democratic goal of regime change in China versus the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) determination to maintain its authoritarian rule. China’s political liberalization offers the best hope for a stable entente; continued growth of Chinese power under its authoritarian regime will embolden more aggressive Chinese behavior abroad. China is reaching economic parity with the U.S., and current trends favor Chinese regional supremacy.
Craig Bond, Standard Bank's China Chief Executive, reiterated the bank's commitment to China and its strategic partnership with ICBC as a critical element of the group's strategy, when he addressed the business leaders from both the financial services
The assistant president and director of business development for China Construction America Inc., Frank Zhang, said his company, owned by China State Construction Engineering Corp. Ltd., hopes to enter into a public-private partnership to design,