NO LIMITS

A longtime China watcher takes a close look at the country’s ambitions, attitudes, and ruthless diplomatic and economic methods.

When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, many policymakers believed the nation would become an honest trading partner and responsible global citizen. Now, however, the Chinese government is viewed as secretive, belligerent, and wildly ambitious. Whereas most of the world treats globalization as a framework for trade and growth, China apparently sees it as the basis for a hierarchy with itself as the dominant force. How, asks Small, who has worked for a range of policy think tanks, did this transition happen? He follows a number of connected themes, although he sees a major trigger in the attempts of the Beijing-backed firm Huawei to establish 5G infrastructure around the world, using it as a means of control. Australia was the first country to reject Huawei, and others followed. China responded with insults and threats of retaliation, which cemented its reputation as a bully. European governments had also become aware that China was buying up critical infrastructure assets and companies in other countries. Another issue was China’s complete rejection of any responsibility for the Covid-19 pandemic despite mounting evidence that it had started there. “As the Chinese government’s growing self-confidence has bled into hubris, and as the polished, pragmatic heirs of Zhou Enlai have made way for diplomatic thugs,” writes Small, “the clarity of the challenge posed by China has sharpened.” Though China has bought a few allies with financial aid, notes the author, there is no underlying trust. Meanwhile, anti-China coalitions are building. Beijing’s methods have created the very situation it feared: everyone against it. Some of the ground in the book has already been covered, but Small does a good job tying the threads together and providing historical context, making for a comprehensive, if worrying, text.

Small ably traces how China went from partner to rival to threat and maps out the challenges that it now poses for the West.