Autumn 2010

We'd Better Hope It Doesn't!

by David M. Lampton

In many respects, Chinese success is a win-win game.

Americans are anxious about the rapid rise of China, and they may be forgiven for idly wishing that the Asian giant would trip and suffer a nasty fall. Many blame China for America’s economic distress and see it as a growing challenge to U.S. power, not only in Asia but in other corners of the world, including our Latin American “backyard.” That “giant sucking sound” that Ross Perot once predicted we would hear as U.S. manufacturing jobs disappeared to Mexico can now be heard loud and clear, but far to the east.

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David M. Lampton, dean of faculty and director of China studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, is the author of The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds" (2008) and the inaugural recipient of the Scalapino Prize, awarded this year by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson Center. The author thanks David Bulman and Sophie Lu for their research assistance.
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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and in no way represent the views or opinions of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. This section is moderated by Wilson Quarterly staff.

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