I finally read Michael Beckley's book Unrivaled. I've mentioned him before. It reinforces my sense that while we have to prepare to resist China, that China's rise isn't as significant as it may seem on the surface.
One thing I'd like to highlight is a counter to the envy of the China fanboys in the West (p. 126):
While formal authority is concentrated in Beijing, much policy implementation is delegated to local governments that routinely evade central government mandates. Local autonomy may have spurred growth during the reform years by allowing different regions to experiment with different policies (although this claim is debated among China scholars), but now China's "decentralized authoritarianism" is undermining Beijing's efforts to "rebalance" the economy from investment to domestic consumption and innovation. In November 2013, the Communist Party outlined sixty reform proposals affecting almost every aspect of the economy, but less than 10 percent were implemented.
China for years can't get things done, let alone China for one day.
And recent years have reminded us that "reasonably enlightened" cannot describe a China that has Orwellian domestic surveillance, crushes Hong Kong in violation of international agreement and human decency, carries out multi-generational ethnic cleansing in Tibet and Xinjiang, and threatens neighbors to expand Chinese territory.
I recommend the book for his power evaluation angle. Those who think the American century is over are premature in that judgment.
But I'd skip the final chapter. The author skates on thinner ice there when he goes into policy judgments and recommendations.
UPDATE: Oh, and about China's supposed long-range planning ability.
