Has China Won?: The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy. By Kishore Mahbubani. New York: Hachette Book Group, 2020. 320 pp. $38 (cloth).

Abstract

[...]Mahbubani argues that the US–China clash is paradoxically both inevitable and avoidable, but it is ultimately up to both superpowers to employ measures in the coming decades to determine the outcome. [...]to the portrayal by several Western media outlets and prominent American politicians, Mahbubani argues that it is the US, rather than China, that remains the biggest global militaristic threat, pointing to the colossal annual increases of US military defense spending as well as its large nuclear stockpiles in comparison with those of China. While Mahbubani focuses largely on the hesitation of Chinese businessmen to open up to the US and other foreign investment, the four years of “America First” policies, trade war antagonisms, and hubristic sanctions have certainly damaged the still-fragile economic superpower coupling. [...]it is clear that Trump's relentless and racially charged sentiments towards China throughout the pandemic—disturbingly echoing colonial-era “Yellow Peril” discourse—has dangerously provoked Sinophobia among the US population.