This is a book about China's grand strategy and its future as an ambitious, declining, and dangerous rival power. Once the darling of U.S. statesmen, corporate elites, and academics, the People's Republic of China has evolved into America's most challenging strategic competitor. Its future appears increasingly dystopian. This book tells the story of how China got to this place and analyzes where it will go next and what that will mean for the future of U.S. strategy.
The China Nightmare makes an extraordinarily compelling case that China's future could be dark and the free world must prepare accordingly.
About the Author
Dan Blumenthal is the director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the US government on China issues for over a decade. From 2001 to 2004, he served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the Department of Defense. Additionally, he served as a commissioner on the congressionally-mandated US-China Economic and Security Review Commission since 2006-2012, and held the position of vice chairman in 2007.
He has also served on the Academic Advisory Board of the congressional US-China Working Group. Mr. Blumenthal is the co-author of An Awkward Embrace: The United States and China in the 21st Century (2012).
Industry Reviews
Dan Blumenthal's The China Nightmare exposes the striking contradictions that bedevil China's rise as a competitor to the United States: a desire to satisfy external ambitions while compensating for grave domestic weaknesses. Addressing this challenge will require deft and sophisticated responses, and US policymakers will not find a better guide to managing this rising but infirm colossus than Blumenthal's book. -- Ashley J. Tellis A perfectly timed diagnosis of the threat that the Chinese Communist Party poses to the free world. Daniel Blumenthal explains what Chinese leaders want and how they intend to get it. The China Nightmare makes clear that if the Party were to achieve its ambitions, the world would be less free and less safe. The author also provides a compelling prescription for how the United States and like-minded partners must compete effectively to prevent the disease of authoritarianism from spreading. -- H.R. McMaster Dan Blumenthal's The China Nightmare unmasks the sharp paradox at the heart of China's strategy to unseat the US as the global leader: Beijing is chasing grand global designs even as the Chinese Communist Party is beset by vexing internal challenges. If Washington fails to respond with strength and dexterity, China will grow ever more dangerous. Blumenthal's penetrating diagnosis of the challenges China poses and his compelling case for a new competitive strategy that exposes China's weaknesses will shape Sino-American relations over the long term. -- Rep. Liz Cheney, (R-WY) . . . well-informed and alarming . . . [Blumenthal] carefully situates his geopolitical analysis within the context of Chinese history and draws incisive conclusions about the dangers that a political or economic crisis in China might pose to the rest of the world. * Publishers Weekly *
