The Long Game

Given the turbulence in the international order in recent years, one of the central concerns among observers of world politics is the question of China’s ultimate goals. As China emerges as a superpower that rivals the United States, American policymakers grappling with this century’s greatest geopolitical challenge are looking for answers to a series of critical questions. Does China have expansive ambitions? Does it have a grand strategy to achieve them? If so, what is 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, and memoirs by party leaders, to demonstrate that China is in fact playing a long, methodical game to replace America as a regional and global hegemon. He traces the basic evolution of Chinese strategy, showing how it evolved in response to changes in US policy and its position in the world order. After charting these shifts over time, Doshi offers a comprehensive yet “asymmetric” plan for an effective US response to this challenge: one that undermines China’s ambitions without competing dollar-for-dollar, ship-for-ship, or loan-for-loan. Ironically, the approach mirrors China’s own current strategy of subtly weakening Chinese leverage in the region and elsewhere while expanding US leverage over China. A bold assessment of what the Chinese government’s true foreign policy objectives are, The Long Game offers valuable insight to the most important rivalry in world politics.