The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds

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University of California Press, Apr 30, 2008 - History - 361 pages
Clear, comprehensive, and well-balanced, this unique assessment takes the measure of what is arguably the most important geopolitical change in today's world: the growth of China's power. In the only book on the subject to be based on extensive interviews with elite political leaders, diplomats, and others in China, the United States, and countries on China's periphery, David M. Lampton investigates the military, economic, and intellectual dimensions of China's growing influence. His account provides a fresh perspective from which to assess China—how its strengths are changing, where vulnerabilities and uncertainties lie, and how the rest of the world, not least the United States, should view it. Lampton gives a valuable historical framework by discussing how the Chinese have thought about state power for over 2,500 years, and he asks how they are thinking about the future use of power through instruments such as their space program. He also provides broad suggestions for policy toward China in light of the 2008 elections in the United States and China's hosting of the Olympic Games, in a book that is essential reading for understanding one of the most significant developments of the twenty-first century.
 

Contents

FIGURES
23
Might
37
2003
57
Chinese and Russian forces holding their first joint military
63
Money
78
Chinas trade balance with the United States and Southeast Asia
90
Major foreign holders of U S Treasury securities
96
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Cuban President Fidel Castro 2004
107
Minds
117
TABLES
131
China and Its Neighbors
164
A Precarious Balance
207
What Chinese Power Means
252
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About the author (2008)

David M. Lampton is George and Sadie Hyman Professor, Director of China Studies, and Dean of Faculty at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is author of Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 (UC Press) and editor of The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Age of Reform, among many other books and articles on Chinese domestic and foreign affairs.