Note: This is an encore edition of Reader's Corner. The episode originally aired in July 2021.
When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, most experts expected the move to liberalize China and make it “a responsible stakeholder in the liberal world order.” But experts made the wrong bet. China today is liberalizing neither economically nor politically but, if anything, becoming more authoritarian and mercantilist. In his latest book, The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership, renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and the Free World must adopt to meet them. He argues that these must be more sophisticated and more comprehensive than a narrowly targeted trade war. Rather, he urges strategies that the United States and its allies can use unilaterally without contravening international or domestic law.
Clyde Prestowitz is the founder and president of the Economic Strategy Institute, and a former counselor to the secretary of commerce in the Reagan administration. He writes for Foreign Affairs and is the author of Rogue Nation and The Betrayal of American Prosperity, among other books.
