num_pages: 424
description: A sobering penetrating and illuminating examination of Chinese-US relations what has contributed to their deterioration and what it means for the future.Relations between China and the United States have deteriorated to the point that in Susan Shirk's assessment we are now fully embroiled in Cold War II. Combining her decades of research and experience Shirk one of the world's most respected experts on Chinese history and policy focuses on thiscollapse in relations. Military flashpoints have increased in number and frequency and rather than acting as trade partners the two countries view economic competition in zero-sum terms. As Shirk notes China and the United States have become so fearful of one another that they are weaponizingtheir interdependence. Not even the common threat of the COVID-19 pandemic could convince them to coordinate their efforts.Overreach assesses how things got to this point. Using her decades of research analysis and first-hand experience Shirk sheds light on China's politics and its evolving role on the world's stage. She opens the black box of China's political system and looks at what lies behind its attempt toexpand soft and hard power abroad. Prior to the global financial crisis in 2008 China seemed willing to engage with domestic and international issues in a constructive manner. Following the crisis however power dynamics shifted and so too did China's approach. It began to view the U.S. as adeclining superpower one China was well on its way to supplanting. Internationally China began to act more belligerently with its neighbors. Internally circumstances have enabled Xi Jinping to consolidate more power than any leader since Mao Zedong.Clearly China has changed. In this sobering penetrating and illuminating book one of the world's leading experts looks not just at how things got to this point but what lies ahead and how it could affect us all.
language: English
title: Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
publisher: Oxford University Press