Read The Contest of the Century Online
Authors: Geoff A. Dyer
The Contest of the Century (45 page)
8
TAKING ON THE DOLLAR
1
“We could be on the verge of a financial revolution”:
Robert Cookson and Geoff Dyer, “Currencies: Yuan Direction,”
Financial Times
, Dec. 13, 2010.
2
“the premier reserve currency”:
Arvind Subramanian, “Renminbi Rules: The Conditional Imminence of the Reserve Currency Transition,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, working paper 11-14, Sept. 2011.
3
“The real challenge to American and Western strategy”:
Edward Luttwak, “National Strategy: The Turning Point,” Sept. 8, 2010 (
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/29746.html
).
4
“the fall of the dollar as the global reserve currency”:
National Intelligence Council, “Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds.” Dec. 10, 2012.
5
“How do you deal toughly with your banker?”:
Ewen MacAskill, “WikiLeaks: Hillary Clinton’s Question: How Can We Stand Up to Beijing?”
Guardian
, Dec. 4, 2010.
6
“Never before has the United States”:
Brad Setser, “China’s $1.5 Trillion Bet,” Council on Foreign Relations working paper, May 2009.
7
“bargaining chip”:
Michael Pettis, “The ‘Nuclear Threat’ of Chinese Reserves,” Aug. 8, 2007 (
http://www.mpettis.com/2007/08/08/the-nuclear-threat-of-chinese-reserves/
).
8
“I won’t say
kowtow
”: James Fallows, “Be Nice to the Countries That Lend you Money,”
The Atlantic Monthly
, Dec. 1, 2008.
9
The harsh reality for China:
see Daniel W. Drezner, “Bad Debts: Assessing China’s Financial Influence in Great Power Politics,” vol. 34, no. 2 (Fall 2009)
International Security
, pp. 7–45.
10
“disconnected to individual nations”:
Zhou Xiaochuan: “Reform the International Monetary System: Essay by Dr. Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’s Bank of China,” March 23, 2009 (
http://www.bis.org/review/r090402c.pdf
).
11
“the financial crisis… let us clearly see”:
Geoff Dyer, David Pilling, and Henny Sender, “A Strategy to Straddle the Planet,”
Financial Times
, Jan. 17, 2011.
12
“The shortcomings of the current”:
quoted in Alan Wheatley, “China’s Currency Foray Augurs Geopolitical Strains,” Reuters, Oct. 3, 2012.
13
“China becoming a nuclear power”:
quoted in “Redbacks for Greenbacks: Internationalising the Renminbi,” European Council on Foreign Relations (http://ecfr.eu/content/entry/redbacks_for_greenbacks_the_internationalision_of_the_renminbi).
14
just one decade after the bill was passed:
Barry Eichengreen,
Exorbitant Privilege
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), chap. 2.
15
With the value of sterling plummeting:
ibid., p. 29.
9
POST-AMERICAN GLOBALIZATION
1
“Fate has written our policy for us”:
quoted in Howard Zinn,
The Twentieth Century: A People’s History
(New York: HarperCollins, 1980), p. 4.
2
“There is an enormous highway developing”:
interview with Charlie Rose, Feb. 8, 2010 (
http://www.charlierose.com/download/transcript/10851
).
3
he realized there was a huge opportunity for China:
see Erica Downs,
Inside China Inc
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2011).
4
“China was getting a discount on finance the country needed”:
see also Deborah Brautigam,
The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa
(Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2011).
5
one of the company’s computers would send a large packet:
the Nortel hacking case was first detailed in Siobhan Gorman, “Chinese Hackers Suspected in Long-Term Nortel Breach,”
Wall Street Journal
, Feb. 14, 2012.
6
“What has been happening”:
Michael Riley and John Walcott, “China-Based Hacking of 760 Companies Shows Cyber Cold War,” Bloomberg, Dec. 14, 2011.
7
presented Chávez with a six-hundred-page book:
Henry Sanderson and Michael Forsythe, “Hugo’s Banker,”
Foreign Policy
, March 7, 2013.
CONCLUSION
1
“We are not complacent”:
“China Unveils New Leadership Team with Xi at the Helm,” Agence Presse France, Nov. 15, 2012.
2
“only one budget deal away”:
Maggie Haberman, “With Bob Carr’s Permission,”
Politico
, July 22, 2012.
There is a rich literature that provides the background for the impact of China on Asia’s politics and military balance. The expansion of China’s influence during the period from the Asia crisis of the 1990s to the 2008 financial crisis is described in different and interesting ways in David Shambaugh, ed.,
China Engages Asia
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press 2005); David C. Kang,
China Rising
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); and Joshua Kurlantzick,
Charm Offensive
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007). Ross Terrill’s
The New Chinese Empire
(New York: Basic Books, 2003) provides rich insights into China’s historical legacy in the region. Hugh White’s essay “Power Shift” (
Quarterly Essay
, issue no. 39, Sept. 2010), which lays out many of the strategic issues now facing the region in a lucid manner, has been published in book form as
The China Choice
(Collingwood, Australia: Black Inc., 2012).
The growing strategic importance of the Indian Ocean is beautifully told in Robert D. Kaplan,
Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power
(New York: Random House, 2010). China’s complex links with Burma are outlined by Thant Myint-U in
Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011). The single best source for information on maritime disputes involving China is the reports of the International Crisis Group, notably “Stirring Up the South China Sea” (pt. I, Asia report no. 223, April 2012; pt. II, Asia report no. 229, July 2012).
The US Naval War College’s James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara have produced a series of writings over the last decade that lift the lid on China’s growing naval fascination, including
Red Star over the Pacific
(Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2010). Their colleague at the Naval War College Andrew S. Erickson is another source of great insight into the capabilities of the Chinese military (his writings are collected at
www.andrewerickson.com
).
China’s revival of “national humiliation” education is well told by both William A. Callahan in
The Pessoptimist Nation
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) and Zheng Wang in
Never Forget National Humiliation
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). For the growth in nationalism over the last two decades, see also Peter Hays Gries,
China’s New Nationalism
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), and Christopher R. Hughes,
Chinese Nationalism in the Global Era
(New York: Routledge, 2004). For the debates at the UN over Sudan and the “Responsibility to Protect,” see James Traub,
The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006).
The risk of imperial overstretch has been widely chronicled over the last few decades, from Paul Kennedy’s
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
(New York: Random House, 1987) to David P. Calleo’s
The Imperious Economy
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982). But the best introduction to the contemporary dilemmas facing the U.S. dollar and the Chinese renminbi is Barry Eichengreen’s
Exorbitant Privilege
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Geoff Dyer is a journalist for the
Financial Times
and has been a correspondent in China, the United States, and Brazil. He is the recipient of a Fulbright award and of several journalism awards, including a Society of Publishers in Asia Award for a series of opinion pieces about China’s role in the world in 2010. He studied at Cambridge University and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He lives with his family in Washington, D.C.
For more information, please visit
www.aaknopf.com
