Book Event - Overreach: How China Derailed its Peaceful Rise

For decades, China’s leadership sought to reassure the international community that its rise would be peaceful – but today, China is increasingly willing to threaten neighbors, utilize coercion, and stoke tensions with the United States and its allies. Now, as Xi Jinping prepares for a third term, he is expected to continuing charting an assertive course for China’s foreign policy that is only likely to stoke further global backlash. What changes in China’s domestic politics led to this shift from caution to combativeness?

On January 20^th, 3:30-4:30pm, please join the Freeman Chair in China Studies for a discussion on the new book, Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise, featuring author Susan Shirk, a research professor and chair of the 21^st Century China Center at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy & Strategy, and moderated by Jude Blanchette, Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. In the book, Shirk discusses the “black box” of China’s political system to provide insight on the country’s turn away from a peaceful rise. Tracing through the history of post-Mao China, Shirk takes a deep dive into the shifts in power and policy that have led to China’s overreach, and provides advice on how the U.S. and its allies can best adjust to China’s increasingly precarious position.

This event was made possible through general support to CSIS.