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A glance at the day's headlines or viewing of the nightly news often portrays the United States and China as two predators in a cage, slowly circling each other and trying to balance a need to survive with the knowledge that one could easily destroy the other. Much like the Soviet Union during the Cold War, China has been positioned in the Western world as the next great superpower and must disrupt what America enjoys to ascend to power. But this line of thinking extends far beyond today's fiction and propaganda, as even academic texts present war as an inevitable outcome that the two societies draw nearer and nearer to. The author of this book, a professor emeritus of political science and international relations, lays bare the flaws in this thinking and offers a path by which conflict can be entirely avoided through diplomacy and forward-thinking.
The structure and outline of this text work together primarily as a refutation of Graham Allison's Destined for War. The points and arguments made by the author are so closely linked to the influential rhetoric of Allison that the two books could almost be considered companion texts. In global matters, it is far too easy to see events and history from one's own perspective. However, the author of this book is careful to highlight the very real and pressing concerns of China's rapidly growing influence while also humanizing and offering context on something too easily sensationalized abroad. Measured and considerate, this book draws parallels and includes a thorough historical viewpoint to show that the only thing that can completely prevent the United States from entering a devastating war is its behavior on the world stage.