HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031854.jpg

21

happy marriage of economic convenience in which one partner does
all the saving and the other does all the spending.
In Kissinger’s own words, China’s rise could “make international
relations bipolar again,” ushering in a new cold (or possibly even hot)
war. Nationalist writers like Liu Mingfu, author of China Dream,
urge China to switch from “peaceful development” to “military rise”
and look forward to the “duel of the century” with the United States.
There are those in Washington, too—apparently including, for the
moment, the Obama administration—who would relish a more
confrontational relationship. Yet Kissinger remains hopeful that
cooler heads will prevail in Beijing: thinkers like Zheng Bijian, who
urges China to “transcend the traditional ways for great powers to
emerge” and “not [to] follow the path of Germany leading up to
World War I.” Rather than attempting to “organize Asia on the basis
of containing China or creating a bloc of democratic states for an
ideological crusade,” the United States would do better, Kissinger
suggests, to work with China to build a new “Pacific Community.”
Four decades ago, Richard Nixon grasped sooner than most the huge
potential of China. “Well,” he mused, “you can just stop and think of
what could happen if anybody with a decent system of government
got control of that mainland. Good God … There’d be no power in
the world that could even—I mean, you put 800 million Chinese to
work under a decent system … and they will be the leaders of the
world.” That prophecy is being fulfilled in our time. The fact that
until now China’s rise has been a boon to the United States rather
than a bane owes much to the work of Henry Kissinger. With this
book he has given his successors an indispensable guide to
continuing the Sino-American “coevolution” he began.

Ferguson is writing a biography of Henry Kissinger.

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031854