Al's Reviews > The Coming Conflict with China

We seem to truly be at the crossroads of yet another major world conflict, with the dominant side of the West coming into conflict with the rising East, driven by the 21st century industrial giant - China. Despite this book being written 20 years ago, the events have been slowly evolving, and we see it's urgency more than ever in 2016.

The thesis put forward by the two journalists, Bernstein and Munro, is that sooner or later communist China will rise up to challenge America for maritime and military supremacy. This inevitability seeps through the pages of the book, and even though the secrecy of the party is evident, we get a sense that the events really are unfolding on a collision course.

The lobbying connections between Bejing and Washington show how China got to use its cunning manipulation to advance technologically, while keeping import tariffs high and devaluing the yuan. This is nothing new, but the prove that 20 years of this led to China's rise are more than evident when the evidence is examined.

In that light, it is not that surprising that this work hasn't been expanded for the past 20 years, given how mainstream the China problem has become. We still have tactical maneuvers in the South China Sea, we still have Japan rising military (especially since the events last year) and finally the Taiwan situation is as predicted, with independentism on the rise.