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The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Bridging the Gap) Kindle Edition

by Rush Doshi (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 471 ratings

Part of: Bridging the Gap (11 books)

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For more than a century, no US adversary or coalition of adversaries - not Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union - has ever reached sixty percent of US GDP. China is the sole exception, and it is fast emerging into a global superpower that could rival, if not eclipse, the United States. What does China want, does it have a grand strategy to achieve it, and what should the United States do about it?

In The Long Game, Rush Doshi draws from a rich base of Chinese primary sources, including decades worth of party documents, leaked materials, memoirs by party leaders, and a careful analysis of China's conduct to provide a history of China's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War. Taking readers behind the Party's closed doors, he uncovers Beijing's long, methodical game to displace America from its hegemonic position in both the East Asia regional and global orders through three sequential "strategies of displacement." Beginning in the 1980s, China focused for two decades on "hiding capabilities and biding time." After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, it became more assertive regionally, following a policy of "actively accomplishing something." Finally, in the aftermath populist elections of 2016, China shifted to an even more aggressive strategy for undermining US hegemony, adopting the phrase "great changes unseen in century." After charting how China's long game has evolved, Doshi offers a comprehensive yet asymmetric plan for an effective US response. Ironically, his proposed approach takes a page from Beijing's own strategic playbook to undermine China's ambitions and strengthen American order without competing dollar-for-dollar, ship-for-ship, or loan-for-loan.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Highly Recommended" -- M. G. Roskin, CHOICE

Recent Reviews

"the most important book on China in years" - Washington Post, John Pomfret

"One of the "Best Books of 2021" - Financial Times

"[Doshi has] meticulously laid bare the Party's methodical advance toward global supremacy. China watchers craving a broad understanding of the Party's geopolitical thought and actions won't be disappointed." - Wall Street Journal, David Wilezol

"As the US and China slip towards a new cold war, Doshi argues that Beijing is pursuing a long-term plan to displace the US as the world's most powerful nation. The verdict may sound sensationalist, but it is carefully argued and backed by deep research and primary sources." - Financial Times, Gideon Rachman

"[Doshi] makes his own case powerfully, with reference to an impressive array of highly authoritative Chinese texts" - The Economist

"Of all the books to appear on this subject in 2021, this will be the one most closely read….Unlike many other Western writers on Chinese strategy, Doshi draws on a deep knowledge of the CCP's voluminous internal and public deliberations." - The Times Literary Supplement, Niall Ferguson

"What does China tell itself about itself? This isn't a rhetorical question. Rush Doshi's The Long Game is a high wattage black light that helps us explore and make sense of China's strategic ambitions to understand their grand strategy." - General CQ Brown, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force

"Rush Doshi's landmark new book fills in key gaps in the United States' understanding of China's strategy and what it means for U.S. policy." - The Council on Foreign Relations

"[A] valuable book...[Doshi] quotes extensively from the often obscure writings and speeches of Chinese leaders and thinkers." - Foreign Affairs, Andrew Nathan

"Brilliant, bracing and empirically rich...It may well turn out to be the one single book that distills both the Chinese approach to the world and the broad contours of Sino-American competition." - The Indian Express

"Rush Doshi's account of China's global strategy in The Long Game is a welcome draft of cold air." - Claremont Review of Books-

"60 pages of painstaking footnotes, many of them quoting internal statements by Communist Party leaders and intellectuals, make it rather compelling." - Reuters, Pete Sweeney

"One of the Top Political Books of 2021" - The Hill

Advance Praise

"The Long Game brings what's been largely missing from debate on US-China relations: historically informed insight into the nature of China's Leninist system and strategy." -Kevin Rudd, President of the Asia Society and former Prime Minister of Australia

"The Long Game is essential in understanding China's approach to the evolving US-China relationship and global order. Unique in scope and unmatched in substance, Rush Doshi's masterfully researched work describes clearly the economic, political, and military contours of China's strategic approach. The observations, analysis, and recommendations of this superb work must be foundational to any China playbook-business, political, or military." -Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S. Navy (Retired)

"Using primary sources and crisp analysis, Rush Doshi decodes Beijing's grand strategy of the last three decades. In the process, he exposes the threadbare assumptions that caused countless American policymakers, intelligence analysts, and scholars to misjudge the intentions and capacities of China's rulers. Wishful thinkers, isolationists, and accommodationists will marshal no credible counterarguments to the central findings of this superb book." -Matt Pottinger, Former Deputy National Security Advisor

"'What does China want?' Rush Doshi makes such a cogent case, based on a wealth of Chinese textual and behavioral evidence, that China's consistent strategy has been to displace the United States that he persuades me to re-examine my view that China's aims are open-ended and malleable. His compelling book should become an instant classic in the China field and required reading for everyone trying to figure out America's own best strategy toward China." -Susan Shirk, Professor and Chair of the 21st Century China Center, University of California-San Diego

"A must-read for anyone wrestling with the China Challenge. Doshi's careful analysis of Chinese language documents make a powerful case that China is pursuing a coherent grand strategy to overturn the US-led international order." -Graham Allison, Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School

"Doshi has brilliantly limned a new framework for understanding both the global ambition and the strategic challenges posed by Xi Jinping and his 'wolf warrior diplomacy.' If you're looking for the one book that best illuminates the historical logic of his unrepentant 'China Dream,' The Long Game is it." -Orville Schell, Director, Center on US-China Policy, the Asia Society

"Based on a careful reading of a vast array of Chinese sources, Rush Doshi presents a novel and compelling account of the evolution of Beijing's grand strategy. Doshi argues persuasively that shifts in China's behavior are driven by the Communist Party's collective assessment of trends in the global balance of power rather than by the personalities or preferences of individual leaders. The implications are not reassuring: China's increasingly open and aggressive attempts to displace the US and transform the international system began before Xi Jinping took power and will likely persist after he is gone. This important and insightful book should be required reading for scholars and policymakers alike." -Aaron L. Friedberg, Professor or Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

"The debate over whether China has a strategy to displace American leadership in Asia is over. Now comes the first authoritative account of what that strategy is. Using a vast array of original sources, Rush Doshi does unprecedented forensic work on the origins of Chinese grand strategy and its prospects for success." -Michael J. Green, author of By More than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia-Pacific since 1783

"If you doubt that China has been pursuing a long-term, comprehensive strategy to achieve global primacy, read Rush Doshi's book. In this brilliant, definitive work, Doshi details the vaulting ambition of Beijing's agenda. Everyone interested in the future of American power and world order should read it now-or weep later." -Hal Brands, Johns Hopkins University and American Enterprise Institute

About the Author

Rush Doshi is the founding director of the Brookings China Strategy Initiative and a fellow (on leave) at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center. Previously, he was a member of the Asia policy working groups for the Biden and Clinton presidential campaigns and a Fulbright Fellow in China. His research has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and International Organization, among other publications. Proficient in Mandarin, Doshi received his PhD from Harvard University focusing on Chinese foreign policy and his bachelor's from Princeton University. He is currently serving as Director for China on the Biden Administration's National Security Council (NSC), but this work was completed before his government service, is based entirely on open sources, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the US Government or NSC.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0971BRJ6V
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (June 11, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 11, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1654 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 430 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #374,022 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #69 in Civics
- #250 in International Relations (Kindle Store)
- #341 in Civics & Citizenship (Books)

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A. Menon

Very insightful perspective on the political strategy of the CCP through time

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2021

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This book is a well timed publication and a very useful resource to think about China's foreign policy strategy and its ultimate view on the changing nature of the global power distribution. There has been a marked deterioration of relations between China and the US that is finding itself very difficult, if not impossible to change course. The global pandemic has worsened relations and shown how the different systems are responding to a changing world in very different ways. Aggressive regulatory changes in China as well have damaged foreign investments and shown China to be increasingly insular with respect to funding its investment needs and all of these issues can be better understood through this latest book by Rush Doshi.

The approach of The Long Game is quite novel. The author, through party publications, pieces together what he sees as China's foreign policy intentions and in particular the parties strategy and goals with regards to rivalry with the US. The author argues that China has always had a long term strategy with respect to its foreign policy ambitions with the US which started out as China biding its time as it built up its strength to now being more assertive as it views the US to be in visible decline. The author highlights how there has been a coherence to China's strategy through the similarities of Chinese leaders speeches and that Xi is continuing a tradition not breaking into a new paradigm. The author brings up concepts like asymmetric strategies where China focused on blunting US power earlier rather than projecting its own by using lower cost strategies which effectively caused the opponent to spend poorly. The author now advocates the US take this cue themself and focus on blunting China rather than projecting its power explicitly. The author frames the discussion of the China naval strategy in this context.

The author also highlights how the party saw the financial crisis as the event which indicated the decline of US power and the opportunity for China to assert itself with a weakened rival. The author highlights how China's institution building has been a calculated exercise to reconstruct regional institutions around their interests and driven by their political goals. In particular the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and One Belt One Road initiative are discussed at length. The Chinese obstinance on any western generated institution building exercise is also discussed and framed in terms of China's blunting strategy. The author spends a lot of time trying to give a picture of how Chinese policy makers see the world and the unfair balance that comes from US hegemony given that they increasingly view their sphere of influence as being trampled, while of course the US would frame the situation as entirely reversed. One does get a fair perspective on how US actions are seen to be driven by self interest rather than by some set of ideals, which is how US foreign policy is often framed (which is increasingly unconvincing).

Overall the Long Game provides insight that makes sense of the transition of the China, US relationship. That gives some ability to deduce that frictions will remain structural and the regional and global rivalry between the US and China will likely continue to increase as a new balance is formed. Furthermore one gets a sense that the divergence between systems is getting more entrenched rather than reversionary as China increasingly views their system as a superior substitute to a decaying Western Liberalism which is decaying from within. The book also gives some strategic perspective on how to approach China and how it will be a difficult counterparty to satisfy. Much of recent events can be understood better as part of a strategic game, both economic and political, that is currently being played. For that reason alone this is a valuable book to have read.

8 people found this helpful

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Ernest

Great book!

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2023

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I wanted to learn about the China US growing posturing conflict and now I do! This book is great, although dense. You really need to sit down and read thoroughly, but if you do you'll realize just how well the author teaches you about the topic. I highly recommend this book!

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Moorthy Muthuswamy

The American Mantra of Democracy Promotion Abroad is Just not Going to Fly

Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2021

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China is an incredibly lucky country, and deservedly so. The basis of modern wealth creation, industrial manufacturing processes, which can take many decades to master, was handed over to China when the Western countries set up shop there. This scenario has had an unfortunate consequence for America, resulting in a tremendous decrease in the percentage of the population employed in industry. And for China, it went in the opposite direction. Admittedly, China lags behind America in high-end manufacturing, but not for long, given its patent acquisition and scientific publishing pace.

Thanks to the author, one learns fascinating new insights about China’s rise and its grand strategy to “displace” America. The communist party, we understand, was a vehicle for China’s nationalist aspirations. But its leaders are not about to kick the ladder away.

The author notes that America survived four waves of declinism only to emerge stronger. During the first three waves, America still had a large percentage of the population employed in the industrial sector. Although the fourth wave saw reduced employment levels in the sector, according to the author, America’s mastery of information technology helped its reemergence.

There is concern that America has become less than enterprising in dealing with debilitating challenges such as the one posed by violent Islamists. America’s “War on Terror” has already cost over five trillion dollars by some estimates, with no end in sight, whereas China is attempting to divest Islamist ideology of its Uygur minorities and "integrate" them through “illiberal” tactics.

As pointed out by the author, America is in the middle of its fifth wave of declinism. He is right not to write America off, just as one should not write China off in its quest either. In the long run, this competition may come down to the wealth differential between the two.

I think the author failed to appreciate what the China “model” of civilizational progress entails. Under the authoritarian communism, China homogenized the society, fed its people, and educated them well, and when the manufacturing opportunity came, China was ready. In comparison, under democracy, the equally populous India has largely failed to do the above, including achieving a solid and diverse economic growth, and is now beset by divisions and insurgencies thanks to a heterogeneous society.

China is likely to become more democratized regardless of the ruling regimes’ restraining attempts if history is any indication. It is only natural that the empowered people want to have a say in how they are being governed. We have seen this happen in Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore, which achieved sustained wealth creation under authoritarian regimes and, much later, became functional democracies.

It is important to grasp that achieving a functional democracy from the ground up requires more than free elections; it requires sustained wealth creation first. This may be a tough pill to swallow: increasingly, the American mantra of democracy promotion abroad is just not going to fly, and China is succeeding in talking up its model – you only have to read what the prime minister, Imran Khan, of Pakistan said on July 3, 2021.

Well, the author has helped me find a front seat to witness this fascinating competition.

83 people found this helpful

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Christine DelVecchio

To understand why China is a threat and what the US can do to counter it, read this book.

Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2021

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I found Rush Doshi’s The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order fascinating as well as informative. I’m no scholar of China or political strategy, yet I found his book to be very readable.

He introduces topics using anecdotes that interest and illuminate. For example, I found captivating his account of China’s clandestine purchase of a Ukrainian aircraft carrier, taking over 7 years to accomplish, costing tens of millions (in US dollars) including bribes, villas and casinos, and involving one basketball player. This narrative illustrated how China in the 1990’s built up its military while hiding that effort.

Doshi’s book is up-to-date. He discusses how China perceives US weakness in dealing with the pandemic. China’s response is to be emboldened. Just look at last week’s events: China flying more than 100 jets over Taiwan as a show of strength.

Doshi is organized and methodical. He makes a very convincing case that China is working towards displacing American liberal systems with their illiberal system. He reviews different approaches to countering China’s ambitions and is persuasive that an asymmetric option is safest, least costly, and effective. If you want to understand why China is a threat and what the US and its allies can do to counter it, read this book.

6 people found this helpful

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cheryl

Excellent insights

Reviewed in Canada on February 11, 2022

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I thought this book was extremely well written and nailed the dynamics between the two nations. It was overly repetitive at times and could have been shortened but overall I highly recommend

One person found this helpful

G B

Size of print in book is too small. El tamaño de la impresión en el libro es demasiado pequeño.

Reviewed in Mexico on August 30, 2021

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I read at night in a good light but not daylight. The size of the print in the book is too small for me to be able to read it even with glasses that multiple 2 times which I bought because I wanted to read the book. As to the book itself I therefore have no comments because I cannot read it. I am tempted to return it.
Leo por la noche con buena luz, pero no a la luz del día. El tamaño de la impresión en el libro es demasiado pequeño para que pueda leerlo incluso con gafas que 2 veces que compré porque quería leer el libro. En cuanto al libro en sí, por lo tanto, no tengo comentarios porque no puedo leerlo. Estoy tentado a devolverlo.

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Jonathan

Gives a great overview of the CCP's strategy and mindset

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2023

Verified Purchase

An invaluable resource on understanding how Chinese leaders approached the end of the Cold War period, written in a way that tells it like a story and details the Chinese Communist Party's reactions to the US' encroachment of Asia. One can gain a great understanding about China's foreign policy, particularly in the post-Cold War, looking at how Beijing saw other regimes fall to US foreign policy and how it learned the lessons from these events. Gives an insightful overview of how China has gradually managed to rival the US as a rising power, from a way that can shape the US' response to Beijing's rise. Great use of primary sources from the CCP though.