Living U.S.-China Relations: From Cold War to Cold War - Hardcover

by David M. Lampton (Author)

This book addresses head-on a core current critique of how the Sino-American relationship was managed across eight administrations. The essence of this critique is that na?e U.S. elites confused their hopes for democracy and a globally responsible China with the actual prospects for those desirable ends, and, in the process, unwisely traded away American interests, competitive position, and national security. In short, the U.S. bolstered the principal strategic threat that it now faces. This book is a fact-based challenge to that simplistic narrative.

Today, developments in the U.S.-China relationship are converging in a fashion that is setting off fire alarm bells. At this moment, in 2023, the underbrush is plentiful, the winds unfavorable, and the atmosphere parched. The fire hazard between America and China is increasing unlike anything we have seen in a half century. This volume describes our current condition and explains the last half-century that has brought us to this perilous day.

The defining and unique characteristic of Living U.S.-China Relations is that it tells the story of U.S.-China ties as the relationship between two societies, not just two states, and it does so through the author's lived experience over nearly sixty years.

Author Biography

David M. Lampton was president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations from 1988-1997. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Far Eastern Studies, and has received top recognitions from Johns Hopkins as a Gilman Scholar, the Committee of 100, The U.S.-China Policy Foundation, the Journal of Contemporary China, Ohio State University for teaching, and was the National Bureau of Asian Research's inaugural winner of the Scalapino Prize. He is a Life Trustee on the Board of Trustees of Colorado College and was in the US Army Reserve in the enlisted and commissioned ranks.