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Debating China: The U.S.-China Relationship in Ten Conversations . Edited by NINA HACHIGIAN . Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2014. xi + 253 pp. $21.95. ISBN 978-0-19-997388-0
Book Reviews
Nina Hachigian, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, provides a wide-ranging overview of the Sino-American relationship early in the era of Xi Jinping in this excellent edited volume to which she contributes a chapter (with Yuan Peng) and a brief Introduction. Debating China consists of exchanges of correspondence between pairs of Chinese and Americans, with each scholar writing two letters responding to the other on assigned subjects. The volume winds up with a thoughtful Conclusion by James Steinberg. This work is suitable for classroom use in both China studies courses and general international relations and foreign policy classes, as well as for interested laypersons. Readers more deeply immersed in US-China relations will find value inasmuch as this collection illuminates the current thinking of leading experts in both nations on the topics at hand. Subjects addressed run the gamut from economic policies, trade, political development and security relations to human rights, global issues, Taiwan and Tibet.
Two striking things leap out at the reader of this book: the first is that, whether Chinese or American, the "correspondents" are looking for ways to achieve more cooperation in the overall Sino-American relationship, as well as in their specific policy domain. And yet, almost all of the chapters highlight how difficult cooperation (or even preventing deterioration in some cases) will be to achieve in actuality. The chapter on "Military developments" by Christopher Twomey and Xu Hui was dreary enough in its implications for the future when written - since then, Sino-American security ties have deteriorated, with mounting friction concerning the East and South China seas most notable. The tone of official Sino-American interactions has become shriller since the book's publication, though there are pockets of progress. Regional conflict of some scale involving China and American allies or friends, either by design or accident, is no longer a trivial possibility at the time of this writing in the summer of 2014. America conceivably could be dragged into an eventuality that is...