Description
Shobert, a senior associate at the National Bureau of Asian Research, explores how America's attitudes toward China have changed and how our economic anxieties and political dysfunction have laid the foundation for turning our collective frustrations away from acknowledging the consequences of our own poor decisions. Shobert argues that unless we address these problems, a disastrous chapter in American life is right around the corner, one in which Americans will decide that conflict with China is the only sensible option. After framing how the American public thinks about China, Shobert offers two alternative paths forward. He proposes steps that businesses, governments, and individuals can take to potentially stop and reverse America's path to a dystopian future.
About the Author
Benjamin Shobert is the founder and managing director of Rubicon Strategy Group, a strategy consulting service focused on market access, government affairs, and regulatory analysis work in China and across Southeast Asia. He is also a senior associate at the National Bureau of Asian Research, a Washington DC think tank. He is a regular columnist for Forbes and has appeared on CNBC Asia's Morning Squawk Box, CCTV, CNN, and ABC World News. His writing has been featured on CNBC and in China Business Review, Fortune Magazine (China), Harvard Asia Quarterly, Slate, Yale University's China Hands Magazine, and other publications.
Reviews
"It's one of the oldest temptations in politics: to divert attention from internal problems by directing blame and anger at a foreign foe. Benjamin Shobert does a very good job of explaining why this impulse can be so dangerous in today's U.S.-China relations and how each country can sensibly address its own real problems without imagining that the other is the cause."-James Fallows, national correspondent for the Atlantic and author of China Airborne: The Test of China's Future
"China is now primary creditor, foreign market, source of goods, and strategic factor in every sphere of American influence. In short, the United States is now one-half of the most important bilateral relationship in the world today. Meanwhile, the average American's understanding of China remains outdated and outmoded. . . . Blaming China is essential reading right now. We must not miss out on the vast commercial opportunities offered by the rise of modern China."-Mitch Presnick, founder and former chairman and CEO of Super 8 Hotels (China)
"This book couldn't be more timely or more needed. Shobert does a brilliant job of helping us remember what an absolute good China's peaceful rise represents for globalization as a whole. By doing so, he injects a big dollop of realism and sensibility into a debate that's spiraled out of control across a Washington that's more eager to scapegoat China for America's structural problems than address them directly. I have been desperately waiting for this book."-Thomas P. M. Barnett, author of the New York Times' bestseller Great Powers: America and the World after Bush
"Shobert articulates an argument rarely heard in Western media. His perspective provides welcome balance to the increasingly one-sided narrative on China in U.S. politics."-Ann Lee, author of Will China's Economy Collapse?
"Shobert offers a critically needed antidote to the pall hanging over the U.S.-China relationship and pessimism about America's future. He expertly marshals a wide array of evidence derived from direct experience, extended contemplation, and a deep sense of responsibility. He argues that effectively addressing America's challenges, including its anxieties about China, requires pursuing a smart and clear-eyed strategy of engagement with China while also getting America's own political and economic house in order. China and non-China specialists alike should read this book."-Scott Kennedy, deputy director, Freeman Chair in China Studies, and director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Book Information
ISBN 9781612349954
Author Benjamin Shobert
Format Hardback
Page Count 232
Imprint Potomac Books Inc
Publisher Potomac Books Inc