Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China (W.W. Norton), by Hal Brands and Michael Beckley

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Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China

Danger Zone opens with a nightmare scenario. It’s Jan. 18, 2025. Inauguration Day is only two days away and the results are bitterly contested. For China, the breakdown of America’s political system is their moment to strike at Taiwan, the island democracy that has rejected China’s bid to incorporate it into the mainland’s totalitarian state.

Of course, as international relations-political science professors Hal Brands and Michael Beckley argue later on, the worst case could be avoided if the U.S. buttresses its Pacific allies and isolates Mainland China’s aggressive moves into the region.

As Danger Zone shows, Chinese leaders post-Mao played their game masterfully as they sought to integrate into the global economy (but not integrate too much!), build their economic and military strength and expand by slow steps. “China sucked up Western technology and capital, dumped its products in foreign markets while keeping its own markets relatively closed, installed Chinese officials atop international organizations …” With the U.S. distracted by 9/11, the second President Bush eagerly sought China’s support. By President Obama’s second term, the expansive behavior of China’s regime began ringing alarms in Washington. Obama’s Pivot to Asia involved shoring up Pacific alliances, but while Obama spoke softly and acted decisively, Donald Trump shouted and waved a big stick, imposing tariffs and thwarting Chinese techno expansion while alarming allies with his erratic statements. President Biden has essentially maintained Trump’s policies but in a reassuring tone.

Danger Zone is a slender book but summarizes several aspects of the new cold war. China’s President Xi Jinping is considerably more aggressive than his predecessors, grabbing total power, yet his economy has slowed and his duplicity over COVID “devastated China’s international reputation.” Insecure dictators often act out to distract their unhappy subjects.

Will he attack Taiwan? The authors advise the U.S. to be tough but “ready to extend the olive branch.” One reason the first cold war ended as well as it did was that American leaders knew how to nudge the Soviets toward letting go of their empire without direct confrontation.