After leading the world economy for a century, the United States faces
the first real challenge to its supremacy in the rise of China. Is
economic (or broader) conflict, well beyond the trade and technology war
that has already erupted, inevitable between the world's two
superpowers? Will their clash produce a new economic leadership vacuum
akin to the 1930s, when Great Britain was unable to play its traditional
leadership role and a rising United States was unwilling to step in to
save the global order?
In this sweeping and authoritative analysis of the competition for
global economic leadership between China and the United States, C. Fred
Bergsten warns of the disastrous consequences of hostile confrontation
between these two superpowers. He paints a frightening picture of a
world economy adopting Chinese characteristics, in which the United
States, after Trump abdicated much of its role, engages in a
self-defeating attempt to "decouple" from its rival. Drawing on more
than 50 years of active participation as a policymaker and close
observation as a scholar, Bergsten calls on China to exercise
constructive global leadership in its own self-interest and on the
United States to reject a policy of containment, avoid a new Cold War,
and instead pursue "conditional competitive cooperation" to work with
its allies, and especially China, to lead, rather than destroy, the
world economy.
