100 books like Dangerous Strait

By Nancy Bernkopf Tucker (editor),

Here are 100 books that Dangerous Strait fans have personally recommended if you like Dangerous Strait. Shepherd is a community of 9,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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The Third Revolution

By Elizabeth C. Economy,

Book cover of The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State

Warren I. Cohen Author Of East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World

From the list on understanding the coming war with China.

Who am I?

I’ve spent all of my adult life writing about American foreign policy, especially Chinese-American relations.  My America’s Response to China, the standard text on the subject, has gone through 6 editions. I served as a line officer in the Pacific Fleet, lived in Taipei and Beijing. I also served as chairman of the State Department Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation and have been a consultant on Chinese affairs to various government organizations. And I cook the best mapo toufu outside of Sichuan. (where I negotiated the Michigan-Sichuan sister-state relationship in 1982). It was probably my love of Chinese food that accounts for most of the above.

Warren's book list on understanding the coming war with China

Why did Warren love this book?

I’ve known Liz since she was a graduate student and have been delighted to see her rise to become one of the leading authorities on the inside workings of the Chinese state. 

After years as the Council on Foreign Relations’ China expert, she left for the Hoover Institute for a quieter atmosphere for her research and writing, but she was drafted to serve as China adviser to Gina Raimondo, Biden’s secretary of commerce. There’s no better book on Xi’s China today.

By Elizabeth C. Economy,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Third Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Third Revolution, eminent China scholar Elizabeth C. Economy provides an incisive look at the transformative changes underway in China today. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has unleashed a powerful set of political and economic reforms: the centralization of power under Xi, himself, the expansion of the Communist Party's role in Chinese political, social, and economic life, and the construction of a virtual wall of regulations to control more closely the
exchange of ideas and capital between China and the outside world. Beyond its borders, Beijing has recast itself as a great power, seeking to reclaim its past glory and…


U.S.-Taiwan Relations

By Ryan Hass, Bonnie Glaser, Richard Bush

Book cover of U.S.-Taiwan Relations: Will China's Challenge Lead to a Crisis?

Warren I. Cohen Author Of East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World

From the list on understanding the coming war with China.

Who am I?

I’ve spent all of my adult life writing about American foreign policy, especially Chinese-American relations.  My America’s Response to China, the standard text on the subject, has gone through 6 editions. I served as a line officer in the Pacific Fleet, lived in Taipei and Beijing. I also served as chairman of the State Department Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation and have been a consultant on Chinese affairs to various government organizations. And I cook the best mapo toufu outside of Sichuan. (where I negotiated the Michigan-Sichuan sister-state relationship in 1982). It was probably my love of Chinese food that accounts for most of the above.

Warren's book list on understanding the coming war with China

Why did Warren love this book?

The authors are three of the best analysts of Chinese affairs in Washington today. Bush is the leading authority on Taiwan, having been responsible for relations between the U.S. and Taiwan for many years when in government service. 

He and Bonnie Glaser are long-time friends whose judgments have served me well in my own work over the last 20-30 years, especially with recent editions of my book. Glaser is widely regarded to have the best sources in Beijing and her predictions of PRC behavior are constantly on the mark. Hass served on the National Security Council during the Obama years and is now at Brookings.  

By Ryan Hass, Bonnie Glaser, Richard Bush

Why should I read it?

1 author picked U.S.-Taiwan Relations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Anxiety about China’s growing military capabilities to threaten Taiwan has induced alarm in Washington about whether the United States remains capable of deterring attempts to seize Taiwan by force. This alarm has fed American impulses to alter longstanding policy, and to increasingly view challenges confronting Taiwan through a military lens. While Taiwan clearly is under growing military threat, it also is facing a simultaneous and intensifying Chinese political campaign to wear down the will of the Taiwan people. This latter line of effort receives less attention, but left unaddressed, has the potential to do far more damage to American interests.…


The China Challenge

By Thomas J. Christensen,

Book cover of The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power

Warren I. Cohen Author Of East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World

From the list on understanding the coming war with China.

Who am I?

I’ve spent all of my adult life writing about American foreign policy, especially Chinese-American relations.  My America’s Response to China, the standard text on the subject, has gone through 6 editions. I served as a line officer in the Pacific Fleet, lived in Taipei and Beijing. I also served as chairman of the State Department Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation and have been a consultant on Chinese affairs to various government organizations. And I cook the best mapo toufu outside of Sichuan. (where I negotiated the Michigan-Sichuan sister-state relationship in 1982). It was probably my love of Chinese food that accounts for most of the above.

Warren's book list on understanding the coming war with China

Why did Warren love this book?

Tom was a deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the administration of George W. Bush. After many years at Princeton, he now heads the East Asian Institute at Columbia.

I selected him to be the chief editor of the Nancy Bernkopf Tucker and Warren I. Cohen Books on American-East Asian Relations series published by Columbia University Press. He’s written a scholarly and exceptionally thought and balanced book, highly critical of the Obama administration’s public diplomacy, especially the rolling out of the “pivot”. 

By Thomas J. Christensen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The China Challenge as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Many see China's rise as a threat to US leadership in Asia and beyond. Thomas J. Christensen argues instead that the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while eliciting its global cooperation. Drawing on decades of scholarship and experience as a senior diplomat, Christensen offers a deep perspective on China's military and economic capacity. Assessing China's political outlook and strategic goals, Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party's decisions about regional and global affairs. Articulating a balanced strategic approach along with perceptive historical analysis, Christensen describes how we might shape China's…


The China Fantasy

By James Mann,

Book cover of The China Fantasy: Why Capitalism Will Not Bring Democracy to China

Warren I. Cohen Author Of East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World

From the list on understanding the coming war with China.

Who am I?

I’ve spent all of my adult life writing about American foreign policy, especially Chinese-American relations.  My America’s Response to China, the standard text on the subject, has gone through 6 editions. I served as a line officer in the Pacific Fleet, lived in Taipei and Beijing. I also served as chairman of the State Department Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation and have been a consultant on Chinese affairs to various government organizations. And I cook the best mapo toufu outside of Sichuan. (where I negotiated the Michigan-Sichuan sister-state relationship in 1982). It was probably my love of Chinese food that accounts for most of the above.

Warren's book list on understanding the coming war with China

Why did Warren love this book?

When this book was published it was a sensation that divided the world of China watchers. Indeed, my wife, Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, hated it—and I loved it. 

Jim, a close personal friend of ours, was arguing that policies that most in the field endorsed, such as Permanent MFN (most favored nation tariff status), were a mistake; that the theory that as China’s economy developed, as it modernized, it would move toward becoming democratic was nonsense. He was dismissive of the Clinton administration’s policies and of the academics and other analysts who supported it. 

His arguments resonated with me based on my time living in China and my contacts with Chinese intellectuals and officials. There’s little doubt today that Jim was right—his experience as the Los Angeles Times Bureau Chief in Beijing and his research for his About Face and Rise of the Vulcans informed his views.

By James Mann,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The China Fantasy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The book that got China right: a prophetic work on how America's policies towards China led it away from liberalization and further towards authoritarianism, from the bestselling author of Rise of the Vulcans

"[The China Fantasy] predicted, China would remain an authoritarian country, and its success would encourage other authoritarian regimes to resist pressures to change . . . Mann’s prediction turned out to be true." -New York Review of Books, October 2017

"From Clinton to Bush to Obama, the prevailing belief was engagement with China  would make China more like the West.  Instead, as [James] Mann predicted, China has…


Accidental State

By Hsiao-ting Lin,

Book cover of Accidental State: Chiang Kai-Shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan

John Grant Ross Author Of Formosan Odyssey: Taiwan, Past and Present

From the list on Taiwan’s history.

Who am I?

I’m a Kiwi who has spent most of the past three decades in Asia. My books include Formosan Odyssey, You Don't Know China, and Taiwan in 100 Books. I live in a small town in southern Taiwan with my Taiwanese wife. When not writing, reading, or lusting over maps, I can be found on the abandoned family farm slashing jungle undergrowth (and having a sly drink).

John's book list on Taiwan’s history

Why did John love this book?

How did Taiwan become the country it is today, how did it become the Republic of China? Hsiao-ting Lin, a leading Taiwanese historian and an archivist at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, convincingly argues that the Nationalist state in Taiwan under Chiang Kai-shek came about in large part from happenstance. The book draws on both English- and Chinese-language archival materials, including newly released official files and personal papers to explain what happened to Taiwan in the crucial years following World War II; it also examines what didn’t happen but might have, such as the island being placed under temporary American trusteeship. Accidental State is unbiased and nuanced history, and packed with fun but intelligent counterfactual nuggets.

By Hsiao-ting Lin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Accidental State as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The existence of two Chinese states-one controlling mainland China, the other controlling the island of Taiwan-is often understood as a seemingly inevitable outcome of the Chinese civil war. Defeated by Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to Taiwan to establish a rival state, thereby creating the "Two Chinas" dilemma that vexes international diplomacy to this day. Accidental State challenges this conventional narrative to offer a new perspective on the founding of modern Taiwan.

Hsiao-ting Lin marshals extensive research in recently declassified archives to show that the creation of a Taiwanese state in the early 1950s owed more to serendipity than…


A Force So Swift

By Kevin Peraino,

Book cover of A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman, and the Birth of Modern China, 1949

Moss Roberts Author Of Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel

From the list on modern Asia.

Who am I?

I have a strong, if contrarian, interest in modern history, Asian history in particular. I have published more than a dozen articles and book reviews on the subject, and I have taught courses on modern Asian history (China, Japan, Vietnam, India) at New York University, where I have been a professor since 1968. A brief history of my somewhat unusual academic career may be found in a 50-page memoir published via Amazon in 2020 together with an appendix containing a sampling of my short writings. It is titled Moss Roberts: A Journey to the East. The memoir but not the appendix is free via Researchgate. In addition, I have studied (and taught) the Chinese language for more than half a century, and published translations of classical works of literature and philosophy.   

Moss' book list on modern Asia

Why did Moss love this book?

President Truman sends George Marshall to China in December 1945 on a special mission to unify the Communists and Nationalists and create a non-Communist China. Marshall returns to the US in early 1947. The mission has failed. Had he been truly neutral as a broker, could the mission have succeeded?

By Kevin Peraino,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Force So Swift as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • Winner of the 2018 Truman Book Award

A gripping narrative of the Truman Administration's response to the fall of Nationalist China and the triumph of Mao Zedong's Communist forces in 1949--an extraordinary political revolution that continues to shape East Asian politics to this day.
 
In the opening months of 1949, U.S. President Harry S. Truman found himself faced with a looming diplomatic catastrophe--"perhaps the greatest that this country has ever suffered," as the journalist Walter Lippmann put it. Throughout the spring and summer, Mao Zedong's Communist armies fanned out across mainland China,…


Chip War

By Chris Miller,

Book cover of Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

Shimon Schocken Author Of The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

From the list on how computers work, and how they are built.

Who am I?

As a computer science professor and educator, my teaching motto is Rigor and Vigor. I believe that the only way to learn something deeply, whether it's an abstract mathematical argument or a complex computer system – is building the thing from the ground up, from first principles. That's the rigor. The second requirement – vigor – comes from the need to make this learning experience captivating, rewarding, empowering. I spent much of my career developing books, courses, and games that help learn computer science and mathematics with gusto. I am pleased that this work has had an impact, and that it resonates with many students and self-learners around the world.

Shimon's book list on how computers work, and how they are built

Why did Shimon love this book?

In recent years, the prowess to design and produce computer chips became a geo-political weapon, in the same league of fossil oil and natural gas. Yet unlike oil and gas, the core natural resource necessary for building chips is human capital.

That’s how a small country like Taiwan became not only the main player in the world’s chip industry, but also the hotspot of the escalating conflict between the USA and China. In Chip War, Chris Miller provides a panoramic view of this world-encompassing paradigm shift.

Miller describes the crucial role that chips play in modern warfare, the essential ingredients of bold innovation and human drive, and the catalytic influence of governments and access to capital.

By Chris Miller,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Chip War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

***Winner of the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award***

'Pulse quickening. A nonfiction thriller - equal parts The China Syndrome and Mission Impossible' New York Times

An epic account of the decades-long battle to control the world's most critical resource-microchip technology

Power in the modern world - military, economic, geopolitical - is built on a foundation of computer chips. America has maintained its lead as a superpower because it has dominated advances in computer chips and all the technology that chips have enabled. (Virtually everything runs on chips: cars, phones, the stock market, even the electric grid.) Now…


China's Civilian Army

By Peter Martin,

Book cover of China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy

Pádraig Carmody Author Of Africa's Shadow Rise: China and the Mirage of African Economic Development

From the list on China’s global and African strategies.

Who am I?

I became interested in China-Africa relations fifteen years ago when I realised that the rise of the former was going to have major and long-lasting effects on the politics and economics of the continent. In a sense, the rising role of China in Africa foretold its rise to global power and influence. Since then I have been fascinated by the ways in which China has restructured, or been involved in the restructuring, of African economies and politics and the ways in which that country’s global strategies and roles have continued to evolve and their impacts. I have written several books on the impacts of emerging powers in Africa.

Pádraig's book list on China’s global and African strategies

Why did Pádraig love this book?

Many analysts have noted a more aggressive or assertive international posture by China in recent years, sometimes termed “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy” after a Chinese action movie from 2017 where a Chinese former special forces soldier defeats an American adversary. This book explains the origins and evolution of China’s diplomatic corp and how it has always been run on military lines, including having a twinning arrangement for diplomats where they are required to report on their partner if they become “ideologically impure.” Martin explains the reasons for China’s more assertive foreign policy in recent years, including through the weaponisation of trade and tourism and in one case the beating up of Taiwanese diplomats. 

By Peter Martin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked China's Civilian Army as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The untold story of China's rise as a global superpower, chronicled through the diplomatic shock troops that connect Beijing to the world.

China's Civilian Army charts China's transformation from an isolated and impoverished communist state to a global superpower from the perspective of those on the front line: China's diplomats. They give a rare perspective on the greatest geopolitical drama of the last half century.

In the early days of the People's Republic, diplomats were highly-disciplined, committed communists who feared revealing any weakness to the threatening capitalist world. Remarkably, the model that revolutionary leader Zhou Enlai established continues to this…


On China

By Henry Kissinger,

Book cover of On China

Shaoyu Yuan Author Of Panda Not Dragon: Why the Rise of China Is Not a Threat

From the list on understanding China and Chinese culture.

Who am I?

Yuan, born in a small town in Inner Mongolia, is a researcher and PhD candidate at Rutgers University. He is an expert on Chinese and East Asian studies. Yuan's research interests include Chinese foreign and domestic policy, Sino-US relations, and how the country utilizes its influence and fosters relationships. He received his MS in International Relations from Northeastern University and BA from Centre College. Yuan has written extensively on China and Chinese foreign policy.

Shaoyu's book list on understanding China and Chinese culture

Why did Shaoyu love this book?

Written by America’s former Secretary of State, this book is the one to read for Westerners to understand today’s China and some of its history. Mr. Kissinger successfully used some well-known Chinese stories, historical events, and Chinese games to communicate his message. The effects of the Opium War in 1840, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the board game weiqi (Go) were all accurately and thoroughly examined as instruments to understand today’s China. Mr. Kissinger and his collaborators performed a fantastic job translating Chinese classic works into English.

By Henry Kissinger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked On China as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1971 Henry Kissinger took the historic step of reopening relations between China and the West, and since then has been more intimately connected with the country at the highest level than any other western figure. This book distils his unique experience, examining China's history from the classical era to the present day, describing the essence of its millennia-old approach to diplomacy, strategy and negotiation, and reflecting on these attitudes for our own uncertain future.


Hidden Hand

By Clive Hamilton, Mareike Ohlberg,

Book cover of Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party Is Reshaping the World

George Magnus Author Of Red Flags: Why XI's China Is in Jeopardy

From the list on on understanding modern China.

Who am I?

I used to be Chief Economist at the UK bank SG Warburg and then at UBS, starting out in 1987 and finally cutting the cord in 2016 as Senior Economic Advisor. I visited China twice or three times a year from about 1994 and then the pandemic intervened. After the financial crisis, I decided that China would be the world’s next big thing. So I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what’s going on there and for the last few years, I've been an associate at the China Centre at Oxford University and SOAS in London. Red Flags was a book I simply had to write. Maybe there’ll be another. We shall see.

George's book list on on understanding modern China

Why did George love this book?

While it’s important to get a grip on what’s going on inside China, it\s also essential to appreciate how China presents itself and tries to influence the world and a second but rather different book that does this is this one. But instead of looking at China from an international relations point of view, these authors look at how the Communist Party uses agencies and institutions to not only influence politicians, think tanks, universities, and businesses in other countries - which is by no means unique - but also to interfere, which is more exceptional. 

This book makes a number of claims, and while some may be more soundly based than others, readers should look at the themes in the round and will learn a lot of what they might not have suspected r read about before.

By Clive Hamilton, Mareike Ohlberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hidden Hand as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Heavily sourced, crisply written and deeply alarming.' The Times

'This is a remarkable book with a chilling message.' Guardian

The Chinese Communist Party is determined to reshape the world in its image.

Its decades-long infiltration of the West threatens democracy, human rights, privacy, security and free speech. Throughout North America and Europe, political and business elites, Wall Street, Hollywood, think tanks, universities and the Chinese diaspora are being manipulated with money, pressure and privilege. Hidden Hand reveals the myriad ways the CCP is fulfilling its dream of undermining liberal values and controlling the world.


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