An analysis of the China Race—the global competition for leadership and world order between the US-led West and the People's Republic of China.
Following its two prequels, The China Order (2017) and The China Record (2023), this book analyzes the China Race, the global competition for power and leadership between the US-led West and the People's Republic of China. Considering the organizational options and optimality with respect to human civilization, Fei-Ling Wang discusses two alternative world orders: the Westphalian System of international relations and a centralized world political unification. Both are feasible and existed before, but with drastically different desirability. The rising power of the PRC state has consistently and methodically sought to recenter and reorganize the world to safeguard and promote its autocracy and, ultimately, build a world empire. Examining the nature, aims, means, accomplishments, pitfalls and failures of Beijing's foreign policy and the state of and developments in Sinology and the West's China policy, Wang focuses on the existential PRC-USA rivalry and proposes a holistic strategic framework, discussing three ranked objectives, for the West and the world, including the Chinese people, to manage, benefit from, and prevail in the China Race.
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The China Race
Arrangement of the Book
1. The China Race: A Normative Analysis of Global Competition and World Order
The Uncommon Race
The Qin-Han Polity and the China Order
A Framework of Analysis
Three Hypotheses
A Contextualization: The China Race versus the Cold War
Consequences of Choices
Odds of Success of the Options
Principles of Normative Assessment
A Short Note on Globalization
Further Considerations on Preferences and Criteria
Issues of Epistemology
2. PRC Foreign Policy: From World Communism to Community of Common Destiny
The Motivation and the Routes
World Revolution or Common Destiny: The Core Interest
Omnidirectional Efforts: Nothing Is Small
Foreign Policy of and for the Party
Cost to the People
Impact on the Chinese Nation
Service and Disservice
The Effects of Beijing's Ventures Abroad
Torrents of Bad Coins
Deals with PRC Characteristics
Time for Engaging in the Race
3. The PRC-USA Rivalry: For Existence and the World
An Existential Rivalry
The Challenger
Aiming High and Globally
Further Reflections on PRC Power and Aims
The State of Sinology
A Study of China Studies
Reframing the Paradigms
The Reorientation of US China Policy
The Anticipated Zigzags
The China Race in the United States
The Glacier in Motion
4. Contaformation: A Strategy for Managing the China Race
The Parameters
Contaformation: Components and Objectives
The State of the Race
Crushing the Party and Quashing the Peculiar Racism
Ideas on Racing Well
The Worldwide Race
The China Race in the PRC
Empowering the Chinese People
More Tracks and Shortcuts
Winning the Race versus Transforming the PRC
The Race and Peace: Matrices of Cost
Epilogue
The Future of China and the World
Notes
Works and Sources Cited
Index
About the Author :
Fei-Ling Wang is Professor of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author of The China Record: An Assessment of the People's Republic and The China Order: Centralia, World Empire, and the Nature of Chinese Power, both also published by SUNY Press.
Review :
"…[an] excellent volume … Highly recommended." — CHOICE
"As an experienced scholar who has observed and contemplated on China for decades, Wang's arguments deftly integrate both humanities/history and political science, concerns for the global order and the Chinese people, the realist perspective in international relations, and normative suggestions for the future global system. The China Race lays down a visible foundation for an important debate in the coming decade and beyond." — Ming Xia, author of The People's Congresses and Governance in China
"The China Race addresses the broad comparative, political-philosophical aspects of the current competition with China that are missing in much of the current scholarship. Wang draws from history and Western as well as classical Chinese political philosophy to separate out what he calls the CCP-PRC entity, a 'Qin-Han' Polity whose interests are not the same as those of the Chinese People and whose very nature is intrinsically incompatible with the US-led liberal international order grounded in the idea of Westphalian state sovereignty." — E. John Gregory, United States Military Academy, West Point
