happy marriage of economic convenience in which one partner does

21 happy marriage of economic convenience in which one partner does all the saving and the other does all the spending. In Kissinger’s own words, China’s rise could “make international relations bipolar again,” ushering in a new cold (or possibly even hot) war. Nationalist writers like Liu Mingfu, author of China Dream, urge China to switch from “peaceful development” to “military rise” and look forward to the “duel of the century” with the United States. There are those in Washington, too—apparently including, for the moment, the Obama administration—who would relish a more confrontational relationship. Yet Kissinger remains hopeful that cooler heads will prevail in Beijing: thinkers like Zheng Bijian, who urges China to “transcend the traditional ways for great powers to emerge” and “not [to] follow the path of Germany leading up to World War I.” Rather than attempting to “organize Asia on the basis of containing China or creating a bloc of democratic states for an ideological crusade,” the United States would do better, Kissinger suggests, to work with China to build a new “Pacific Community.” Four decades ago, Richard Nixon grasped sooner than most the huge potential of China. “Well,” he mused, “you can just stop and think of what could happen if anybody with a decent system of government got control of that mainland. Good God ... There’d be no power in the world that could even—I mean, you put 800 million Chinese to work under a decent system ... and they will be the leaders of the world.” That prophecy is being fulfilled in our time. The fact that until now China’s rise has been a boon to the United States rather than a bane owes much to the work of Henry Kissinger. With this book he has given his successors an indispensable guide to continuing the Sino-American “coevolution” he began. Ferguson is writing a biography of Henry Kissinger. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031854