Description
From the former Financial Times Beijing bureau chief, a balanced and far-seeing analysis of the emerging competition between China and the United States that will dominate twenty-first-century world affairsโan inside account of Beijingโs quest for influence and an explanation of how America can come out on top.The structure of global politics is shifting rapidly. After decades of rising, China has entered a new and critical phase where it seeks to turn its economic heft into global power. In this deeply informed book, Geoff Dyer makes a lucid and convincing argument that China and the United States are now embarking on a great power โ style competition that will dominate the century. This contest will take place in every from control of the seas, where Chinaโs new navy is trying to ease the United States out of Asia and reassert its traditional leadership, to rewriting the rules of the global economy, with attempts to turn the renminbi into the predominant international currency, toppling the dominance of the U.S. dollar. And by investing billions to send its media groups overseas, Beijing hopes to shift the global debate about democracy and individual rights. Eyeing the high ground of international politics, China is taking the first steps in an ambitious global agenda.
Yet Dyer explains how China will struggle to unseat the United States. Chinaโs new ambitions are provoking intense anxiety, especially in Asia, while Americaโs global influence has deep roots. If Washington can adjust to a world in which it is no longer dominant but still immensely powerful, it can withstand Chinaโs challenge. With keen insight based on a deep local knowledgeโoffering the reader visions of coastal Chinese beauty pageants and secret submarine bases, lockstep Beijing military parades and the neon media screens of Xinhua exported to New York Cityโs Times Squareโ The Contest of the Century is essential reading at a time of great uncertainty about Americaโs future, a road map for retaining a central role in the world. ISBN:9780307960757
