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Review

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE A LONDON TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR: POLITICS A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: POLITICS AN AMAZON BEST HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 LIONEL GELBER PRIZE “Thucydides’s Trap identifies a cardinal challenge to world order: the impact of a rising power on a ruling power. I read the book with great interest. I can only hope that the US-China relationship becomes the fifth case to resolve itself peacefully, rather than the 13th to result in war.” — HENRY KISSINGER, former United States Secretary of State “Graham Allison is one of the keenest observers of international affairs around. He consistently brings his deep understanding of history’s currents to today’s most difficult challenges and makes our toughest foreign policy dilemmas accessible to experts and everyday citizens alike. That’s why I regularly sought his counsel both as a senator and as vice president. In Destined for War, Allison lays out one of the defining challenges of our time — managing the critical relationship between China and the United States.” — JOE BIDEN, former Vice President of the United States “One of the most insightful and thought-provoking books I have ever read on the most important relationship in the world: the US and China. If Graham Allison is right — and I think he is —China and the US must heed the lessons in this superb study in order to build a strategic relationship that avoids a war which neither side would win.” — GENERAL (RET.) DAVID PETRAEUS, Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, former Director of the CIA, and former Commander of US Central Command “The Chinese superpower has arrived. Could America's failure to grasp this reality pull the United States and China into war? [Destined for War] argue[s] persuasively that adjusting to this global power shift will require great skill on both sides if conflagration is to be avoided... [Destined for War is full of] wide-ranging, erudite cases studies that span human history... [A] fine book.” — NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW “This summer’s must-read book in both Washington and Beijing.” — NIALL FERGUSON, BOSTON GLOBE  “Please read this book because it'll rattle you...[Allison is] a first-class academic with the instincts of a first-rate politician. He brings to the 'Thucydides Trap' an impressive sweep of history and geopolitical and military knowledge. Unlike some academics, he writes interestingly... Allison isn't a pessimist. He argues that with skillful statecraft and political sensitivity these two superpowers can avoid war.” — BLOOMBERG NEWS “A brief but far-reaching book in which potted history is incisively deployed…Perhaps we can avoid war, Mr. Allison says, by negotiating a long peace with China.” — WALL STREET JOURNAL “Allison raises critical issues with a sense of both drama and history. His prose should alarm serious American thinkers... and perhaps divert us from debates over backchannels to Russia, presidential tweets and the ghost wiretapping of Trump Towers. And if you want some serious strategic imagination, pay special attention to the last ten pages or so. Worth the read.” —MICHAEL HAYDEN, former Director of the CIA, in The Cipher Brief “Can the US avoid confrontation with China? That is the geopolitical question of our age. In most cases, Thucydides was right: when a new power arises in the world, it results in a clash with the dominant power. This important and fascinating book extracts lessons for how we can avoid such a confrontation.” — WALTER ISAACSON, author of Steve Jobs and The Innovators “A hugely respected theorist and practitioner in the field of contemporary national security, Graham Allison is also a master of applied history. You can bet that China's leaders will read Allison's warnings about Thucydides's Trap. I only wish I could be as sure about America's leaders. But every informed citizen should buy a copy.” — NIALL FERGUSON, senior fellow, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author of The War of the World “A provocative thesis on one of today's most pressing foreign policy issues and a page turner of the first order, Destined for War is a must read. Professor Allison writes with the propulsive narrative drive appropriate for such an immediate and danger fraught topic. I can only hope that all senior policy experts read this timely book to prevent our country from falling into the trap Professor Allison so ably warns us against.” — CHRISTOPHER REICH, bestselling author of Invasion of Privacy, The Patriots’ Club, and Numbered Account   “Do China and America want war? No. Might they be compelled into conflict by severe structural stress? Yes. Thankfully, Allison charts an essential course to avoid a catastrophic collision. Destined for War will be studied and debated for decades.” — KEVIN RUDD, former Prime Minister of Australia “In Destined for War, Graham Allison has again done a great service. With an incisive review of the wars of yesterday and a deep understanding of today’s international politics, Allison has provided American and Chinese leaders not just with a stark warning about the consequences of falling into the Thucydides’s Trap, but also the insight to avoid it. For policymakers, scholars, and citizens on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, Destined for War is essential reading.”  — ASH CARTER, former U.S. Secretary of Defense “Graham Allison is the Paul Revere of the nuclear age. He has been ringing the alarm for years trying to stir us from our slumber. In his brilliant book, Allison provides us with a heart stopping look into a future that may end as abruptly as the past began.”  — WILLIAM COHEN, former U.S. Secretary of Defense “In dissecting — and suggesting ways to bend — the dangerous arc of the US-China relationship, Graham Allison has written the most important foreign policy book of our time. This book should immediately be read by our new president. Placing Destined for War atop every government organization’s reading list offers our generation of leaders the best hope for avoiding stumbling into Thucydides’s notorious trap.” — ADMIRAL (RET.) SANDY WINNEFELD, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “Drawing on a sweeping command of history and a keen ability to distill the essence of an argument, Graham Allison has provided the necessary guide for how to manage Sino-American relations into an uncertain future. Essential, even indispensable reading for every diplomat — and financier or businessman — that contemplates China and its relations with the world.” — KURT CAMPBELL, CEO of The Asia Group and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs “Destined for War is a must-read for anyone concerned about US-China relations, or peace. And by all who care about the ways US foreign policy is formed — and ought to be formed. A gifted combination of scholarship with truly accessible writing.” —  AMITAI ETZIONI, professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University and author of Avoiding War with China “Reading Destined for War and drawing from its lessons could help to save the lives of millions of people.” — KLAUS SCHWAB, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum   “Steeped in history and propelled by one of the most transformative developments in modern times — the rise of China — Graham Allison has written a gripping book that decision-makers and citizens alike must read, digest, and act upon. Allison combines a historian’s depth of knowledge with a policymaker’s real world, practical understanding. He mines the recent and distant past to offer essential insights into the future — in so doing, changing the way we think about how America should act in the present.” — SAMANTHA POWER, former U.S Ambassador to the United Nations and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Problem from Hell   “If any book can stop a world war, it is this one. Graham Allison makes a clear and compelling case that serious conflict between the United States and China is looming, but not inevitable.  This gripping book is a must read for policy makers in both nations as well as the general public.” — SAM NUNN, Co-Chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and former U.S. Senator (1972-1996) “Might Destined for War be the policy book of the year? When Xi Jinping declares that the story in Graham Allison’s book is serious enough to compel our attention, then we need to study the arguments in it. Deftly presented, clearly structured, and with a fine concluding exploration of the endless historical debate between great forces and contingency, Destined for War seems itself destined for much attention, argument and constant classroom use.” — PAUL KENNEDY, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers “Graham Allison is the quintessential scholar-practitioner. He has served at the highest levels of government and the academy, and is one of the principal protagonists of 'applied history' world-wide. His latest book brings historically-informed political science to bear on the preeminent strategic question of our age: whether the rise of China can unfold without major war. A work of reflection rather than prediction, its conclusions are nevertheless deeply disturbing. Surely another classic in the making, Destined for War is a brilliant example of 'thinking in time', which—as the author shows—is against us.” — BRENDAN SIMMS, author of Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy   “Graham Allison has been a source of inspiration for me as a student and diplomat. As with Essence of Decision, Destined for War again provides us with his penetrating insights into global politics in the 21st century and beyond.” — BAN KI-MOON, former Secretary General of the United Nations   “Managing our strategic rivalry with a rising China will be the number one challenge for US foreign policy in the decades ahead. The stakes are high. Historical precedents are ominous. Some think conflict is inevitable. Others dismiss that conclusion as simplistic. This seminal book provides the reader both with a fascinating excursion through history, and with the conceptual basis for thinking intelligently about an issue that, for better or worse, will profoundly affect the future of the United States.” — J. STAPLETON ROY, former U.S. Ambassador to China   “As Destined for War demonstrates, recognizing the Thucydidean stress between the US and China is far from appeasement. Rather, Graham Allison shows why it is the fundamental starting point for a successful American strategy to deal with the rise of Chinese power that both upholds our vital national interests and avoids war.” — ROBERT D. BLACKWILL, Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. Ambassador to India   “Graham Allison, with his usual conceptual clarity, uses the “Thucydides’s Trap” to light up the big question of our day: how can the dominant power (the United States) avoid war with the rising power (China)? Allison provides historical perspective, while presenting the U.S. perspective that he knows from the inside and the Chinese perspective that he has studied with uncommon depth.” — EZRA VOGEL, author of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China   “Read this book. You cannot get a better introduction to the dilemmas the US faces in its China policy or to the methods of applied history in understanding current affairs.” — ARNE WESTAD, author of Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750   “It isn’t often that a book comes along that should be mandatory reading for every member of Congress, Cabinet member and, for that matter, any senior governmental official with a connection to foreign policy and national security. But Graham Allison’s Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? is such a book.” — CHARLES E. COOK, JR., Editor of The Cook Political Report   “Destined for War is a ‘must read’ for those who care about the long-term security and economic interests of the United States.” — DAN SULLIVAN, U.S. Senator (R-AK)   “Allison’s book is essential reading both for the content and its impact. It is already being circulated in the White House and politburo, and will no doubt be added to political science reading lists in universities around the globe... Allison calls Obama’s Asia pivot 'using an extra strength aspirin to treat cancer.' With this book, we might finally be shifting to chemotherapy.” — LOWY INSTITUTE   “A pertinent study of the relationship between the United States and China... A timely, reasoned treatise by a keen observer and historian.” — KIRKUS (Starred Review)   “As Xi Jinping prepares to meet Donald Trump in Florida next week, his staff might do well to get hold of an advance copy of an important new book by Graham Allison on US-Chinese relations — which bears the doom-laden title Destined for War. The Chinese president is already familiar with the work of Allison, a professor of government at Harvard. In November 2013, I attended a meeting with President Xi in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where he told a group of western visitors: ‘We must all work together to avoid Thucydides’s trap.’” — GIDEON RACHMAN, Chief Foreign Affairs Columnist of the FINANCIAL TIMES   “The Trump White House isn’t known as a hot spot for Ivy League intellectuals. But last month, a Harvard academic slipped into the White House complex for an unusual meeting. Graham Allison, an avuncular foreign policy thinker who served under Reagan and Clinton, was paying a visit to the Trump National Security Council, where he briefed a group of staffers on one of history’s most studied conflicts — a brutal war waged nearly 2,500 years ago, one whose lessons still resonate, even in the administration of a president who doesn’t like to read.” — POLITICO   “Mr. Allison does not say that war between China and the United States is inevitable, but he thinks it “more likely than not.” This alarming conclusion is shared by many in Washington, where Mr. Allison’s book is causing a stir... China and America could blunder into war in several ways, argues Mr. Allison... With Donald Trump in the White House, Mr. Allison worries that even a trade war might turn into a shooting war.” — THE ECONOMIST   “Graham Allison has written what I think will be the definitive book on the relationship between China and the United States.” —DAVID RUBENSTEIN, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group   “The reason Destined for War is such an important book is that it asks: if China, with its current form of government and economic arrangement, rises to be twice as big as the United States, spending twice as much on everything including its military, then what happens? Most people do not want to accept that this scenario is possible, let alone even contemplate what happens… If war happens, it would be an all-out catastrophe. So we need to do everything we possibly can to avoid it.” —LI LU, Founder and Chairman of Himalaya Capital Management   “Graham Allison has articulated an idea known as the “Thucydides Trap.” It states that, through history, the rise of an emerging power very often creates fear and anxiety among established powers, which can (in the worst-case scenario) lead to war. Schwarzman Scholars was designed to help defuse those tensions and create a more peaceful world.” — STEPHEN SCHWARZMAN, CEO of Blackstone Group   “My Book of the Week from Sunday’s show: Graham Allison’s Destined for War. A very smart and important book.” — FAREED ZAKARIA, host of CNN’s GPS   “Destined for War:Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Read every page… Twice.” —  ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, former White House Communications Director   “Destined for War by Graham Allison informs the moment like Guns of August did for Kennedy in [the] Cuban Missile Crisis. Important lessons.” — LLOYD BLANKFEIN, CEO of Goldman Sachs  Destined for War “sounds a useful, even important warning call… Stability and predictability are key factors in averting conflict. America needs a coherent strategy, rather than making sporadic lunges onto the world stage with either rhetoric or cruise missiles.” — THE LONDON TIMES   "Destined for War has made the 2018 reading list of Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of U.S. Central Command…Whether you’re looking for a book or two to read over the holidays or beginning to compile your own 2018 professional development reading list, the books on this list are a great place to start.” — MODERN WAR INSTITUTE AT WEST POINT   “The U.S. needs a strategy to deal with a China that is increasingly comfortable engaging aggressively in the world. A good primer on this is Graham Allison’s recent book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Allison, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, tells the story of China’s truly meteoric rise over the past three decades, and makes the point that while we are playing checkers, the Chinese are not simply playing chess — they are playing a different game altogether: Go.” — ADMIRAL (RET.) JAMES G. STAVRIDIS, Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and former Supreme Allied Commander Europe.  

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About the Author

GRAHAM ALLISON is director of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a best-selling author. Founding dean of the Kennedy School of Government, he has advised the secretaries of defense under Reagan, Clinton, and Obama.  

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Product details

Paperback: 400 pages

Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (August 7, 2018)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1328915387

ISBN-13: 978-1328915382

Product Dimensions:

5.3 x 1 x 8 inches

Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.4 out of 5 stars

197 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#10,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

This book is really about the rise of China. America is facing its first serious economic competitor since it overtook Britain in the 19th century. The US has also been the dominant power in Asia since 1945. It has fought in Korea and Vietnam and protected Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, and the sea lanes in the region. When President Xi became China’s leader in 2012, he announced that his aim was to make China great again. This has meant a more assertive China. The book is a little disappointing because it points out that both countries are on a collision course but it does not present any good options for the US.Graham Allison is a professor at Harvard. He reviews history and observes that when a new superpower emerges the reigning hegemonic power feels threatened and often (but not always) decides to crush the upstart before it gets too powerful. Often this results in a catastrophic war. Allison calls this the “Thucydides trap” after the ancient Greek historian. He starts with the Sparta-Athens war (431 BC - 404 BC). Sparta decided that it had to defeat Athens before it became too powerful. Thucydides tells us that war between the cities was more or less inevitable. Allison picks sixteen similar examples of great power conflicts over the last 500 years, only four ended peacefully.Allison describes the behavior of the US after it became the world’s leading economic power in the 1890s. This sets a worrying precedent should the Chinese choose to follow our example. America started to apply the Monroe Doctrine and regarded the Western Hemisphere as its backyard. Teddy Roosevelt made it clear to the Europeans that the US would not tolerate interference in the Americas and it would fight to protect its interests. The US threatened Britain and Germany with war. Fortunately, the Europeans backed down. China now regards the South China Sea as its backyard and has started to flex its muscles. Xi talks of “Asia for the Asians” and wants the US to withdraw its military from the region. It is not clear what happens next if we try and maintain the current status quo. Foreign policy experts such as Ian Bremmer and Robert Kaplan have advised appeasement and suggested that we should terminate our obligations to Taiwan and Japan.John Mearsheimer is a history professor at the University of Chicago and he has also written about China and America. Mearsheimer believes that once countries become economically dominant they seek to dominate their region militarily. He calls this “offensive realism.” The neo-cons who worked for the first President Bush wanted the US to become a global hegemon and they created the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which Allison does not mention. The doctrine wanted to prevent any new rising power becoming a rival as powerful as the Soviet Union. This is the "Thucydides Trap" as foreign policy. Mearsheimer predicts that China will attempt to dominate Asia so that conflict with the US is probably inevitable. This is the crucial foreign policy problem of our age, what happens in Syria is irrelevant by comparison. Allison believes that both America and China assume that they are special and inherently superior to other nations. They expect other countries to follow their lead and be submissive. This could present problems in Asia for the US. China has made it clear it does not want be part of a world order dominated by the US and its liberal democratic values. Like the US, it wants to lead.Allison believes that there will soon come a time when the US would probably lose a military confrontation in the South China Sea. The Chinese have developed land based missiles which could sink America’s carriers if they get too close to the Chinese mainland. Does that mean we should respond like Britain in the early part of the 20th century and back-off? What would that mean for Taiwan, Japan and South Korea? Allison does not offer any real answers.Some of Allison’s chosen historical lessons were not particularly relevant to the coming conflict with China and I often disagreed with his analysis. Allison describes WW1 primarily as a struggle between Britain and Germany. Germany’s decision to go to war in 1914 was mainly about its rivalry with Russia and maintaining hegemony over the European mainland, something Britain never had any interest in. Germany was concerned about protecting its backyard, which meant its long border with Russia. Moltke, the head of the German army, wanted to crush Russia before it was too late. The Tsar had a huge army and the country was rapidly industrializing. Russia had always been an expansionist power. A modern Russian army would have been a real threat to Germany.Allison's list of key players in 1914 (e.g., Churchill, Edward VII, Bethmann Hollweg, and the Kaiser) is also wide of the mark. He focuses on Churchill, who was Britain’s navy secretary at the time. On the British side, Sir Edward Grey (Foreign Secretary) and David Lloyd George ultimately called the shots. Grey hated the Germans and wanted to help France. Lloyd George became prime minister in 1916 and his support was needed before war was declared. The German chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) did not control the army or foreign policy. Moltke sidelined the Kaiser. The objective of the German army's Schlieffen Plan was to remove the Russian threat. The German army believed they could defeat the French easily, as they had in 1871, and they did not worry about Britain’s tiny army. Britain entered the war only because Germany invaded Belgium.Overall, the book is easy to read and very informative. What Allison makes clear is that we don't have any good options. By 1905, Britain had no economic interests in the Western Hemisphere that it was prepared to fight over, apart from Canada. It may be different for the US in Asia. It we choose to withdraw from Asia, it would raise fundamental questions about the global role of the US. We would no longer need to spend $600 billion annually on defense. This is a difficult and risky call for the US. We need a book which can hopefully explain the pros and cons of the various options.

I wondered if this book might be a hackneyed view of China with a sensationalized scenario of improbable war. However, Author Graham Allison quickly back-peddles away from the provocative title:=====The possibility that the United States and China could find themselves at war appears as unlikely as it would be unwise.=====So much for THAT title! The title was written to sell books, of course, and not to represent the true content of the book.Allison primarily frames the USA vs. China rivalry in the well-known paradigm of superpower rivalries going back to Athens vs. Sparta, Britain vs. {every European Empire + Russia + Japan + USA}, and finally the USA vs. the Soviet Union.These stories are well-known. However, Allison tells them in interesting ways. For example, he explains that Germany’s desire to acquire much of the world dates from the late 1800s. Hitler did not originate the idea, but rather put it into action by attempting to wipe out the Soviet Union and repopulate it with Germans. That’s not relevant to China, but it is interesting history in its own right.He also tells the interesting story of how the USA’s rise rattled Great Britain and its Canadian Dominion. Fortunately, we “upstart Yankees” and the imperious Brits always compromised before armed conflict resulted --- the most severe incident being the Venezuela crisis of the 1890s when the USA accused Britain of violating the Monroe Doctrine by trying to re-colonize part of Venezuela’s territory. Fortunately, Britain took the long view that maintaining its investments in the USA, plus having us as allies against anticipated future aggression from Germany, was far more important than inciting us to war over Venezuela.Britain backed down, knowing that Venezuela was a prestige issue for the USA that we could not back down from. The implication is that we should not allow ourselves to be drawn into war with China over petty incidents that are vital to China’s prestige, but not to ours.Allison explains that China is fundamentally a peaceable country that regards war as the last resort of barbarians. The Chinese tradition is to prevail economically, by attaining dominance in trade. Nevertheless, we did fight the Chinese during the Korean War when they massively intervened to keep our armies away from the Chinese border. The Chinese did not fear our nuclear weapons, nor did they fear those of the Soviet Union when they provoked the Sino-Soviet Border War of 1969. Allison tells the interesting story of how Soviet Chairman Brezhnev asked our President Nixon to join him in a preemptive nuclear attack on China. Nixon declined of course, and then succeeded in establishing détente with China as well as the USSR.The USA and China have historically been in alliance against other expansionist powers, especially during WWII when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor after we demanded that the Japanese withdraw from their brutal conquest of China. Nevertheless, the possibility of war between the USA and China cannot be ignored. It happened in Korea and could happen again if relations are not carefully managed. After all, some of history's bloodiest wars, including WWI, the Chinese intervention in Korea, and our own Civil War were considered impossible until the day they ignited.Allison outlines the scenarios of possible USA / China war: a conflict in the high seas around China that China claims as sovereign territory; a conflict over the trade imbalance; a declaration of independence by Taiwan; and of course a renewal of the conflict in Korea that could accidentally involve both the USA and China in a war neither wants.The book explained to me why President Trump appears to be proceeding very cautiously (more cautiously than I would prefer) in asking the Chinese to restrain their trade imbalance with us, and in helping us defuse the nuclear ambitions of North Korea. I was educated to the subtleties of our relations with China that I had not been previously aware of.Like many Americans, I approached this book with both affection for China’s people, culture, and history. I have invested profitably in Chinese stocks, but have also seen how severe trade deficits with China severely hurts the USA and cost millions of Americans their jobs.The book confirms my belief that if we do not constrain our trade with China, we are destined to be destroyed as a major economic power. I travel abroad, and have seen how China copies American products, then pushes our American companies out of foreign markets and even our own domestic market. If the trend is not stopped, China will own the USA in 50 years or less. They will conquer us by combining the Chinese government and Chinese business into a unified, irresistible force that steals American technologies and repackages them as Chinese-made products sold around the world; while forbidding American companies to do business in China. Allison makes no bones about China’s intentions:=====China is ready to use the carrots and sticks of its economic power— buying, selling, sanctioning, investing, bribing, and stealing as needed until they fall into line....China enjoys such superiority in its balance of economic power that many other states have no realistic option but to comply with its wishes, even when the international system is on their side....The fact is that China’s economic network is spreading across the globe, altering the international balance of power in a way that causes even longtime US allies in Asia to tilt from the US toward China=====I thus learned more than I expected from the book. It is comprehensive in providing a broad perspective of all our current issues with China. Allison explains these issues objectively, and seems to have no hidden agendas to advocate for. I am rating this book four stars instead of five, only because the “Sparta vs. Athens” theme is long-winded and used to pad the book a bit more than necessary.I would also recommend another book as a companion to this one, that portrays the USA / China relationship in more historical depth, and with a more positive spin: THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY (the USA is called "the beautiful country" by Chinese) AND THE MIDDLE KINGDOM (China) BY John Pomfret. That book explains the past history of our relations with China. This book by Graham Allison has a more immediate impact of explaining our relations with China as a current and future event that may have an unhappy outcome if care is not taken on both sides.These two books together provide a thorough briefing on the opportunities, challenges, plus the threat of trade war or armed conflict with China. My takeaway from both is: “We can manage our relations to China constructively so as to have a fascinating and prosperous future of mutual benefit to us ad all humanity; but only so long as we are very careful not to disrespect each other, underestimate each other, or do something stupid that will provoke a war, that does not need to be fought.”Of course that idea is self-evident, but the books delve into the specific details of policy on HOW the vision of cordial relations and mutual prosperity between the USA and China can be achieved by both nations. Obviously, this will be one of the top two or three issues that shape our destiny, and the world’s, during the 21st Century.

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