Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia

A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia

  • May 21, 2012

There may be no denying China’s growing economic strength, but its impact on the global balance of power remains hotly contested. Political scientist Aaron L. Friedberg argues that our nation’s leaders are failing to act expeditiously enough to counter China’s growing strength. He explains how the United States and China define their goals and reveals the strategies each is now employing to achieve its ends. Friedberg demonstrates in this provocative book that the ultimate aim of Chinese policymakers is to “win without fighting,” displacing the United States as the leading power in Asia while avoiding direct confrontation. The United States, on the other hand, sends misleading signals about our commitments and resolve, putting us at risk for a war that might otherwise have been avoided. A much-needed wake-up call to U.S. leaders and policymakers, A Contest for Supremacyis a compelling interpretation of a rivalry that will go far to determine the shape of the twenty-first century.

Dr. Aaron Friedberg is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. He first joined the Princeton faculty in 1987, and was Director of Princeton’s Research Program in International Security at the Woodrow Wilson School from 1992-2003, as well as Acting Director and then Director of the Center of International Studies at Princeton in 2000-2001 and 2002-2003. From June 2003 to June 2005 he served as a Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs in the Office of the Vice President. In November 2006 he was named to the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion. He is a former fellow at the Smithsonian Institution’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, and Harvard University’s Center of International Affairs. Dr. Friedberg is the author of two other books, The Weary Titan, 1895-1905: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline (Princeton University Press, 1988) and In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Grand Strategy (Princeton University Press, 2000). His areas of interest include international relations, international security in East Asia, foreign policy, and defense policy. He earned his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

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A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia