A powerful new explanation of China's rise that draws from the business world to show that China is not simply copying established great powers, but exploiting geopolitical opportunities around the world that those other powers had ignored.
Thirty years ago, the idea that China could challenge the United States economically, globally, and militarily seemed unfathomable. Yet today, China is considered another great power in the international system. How did China manage to build power, from a weaker resource position, in an international system that was dominated by the U.S.? What factors determined the strategies Beijing pursued to achieve this feat?
Using elite interviews, granular data, and authoritative Chinese sources, Oriana Skylar Mastro demonstrates that China was able to climb to great power status through a careful mix of strategic emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship on the international stage. This "upstart approach" - determined by where and how China chose to compete - allowed China to rise economically, politically, and militarily, without triggering a catastrophic international backlash that would stem its rise. China emulated (i.e. pursued similar strategies to the U.S. in similar areas) when its leaders thought doing so would build power, while reassuring the U.S. of its intentions. China exploited (i.e. adopted similar approaches to the U.S. in new areas of competition) when China felt that the overall U.S. strategy was effective, but didn't want to risk direct confrontation. Lastly, China pursued entrepreneurial actions (i.e. innovative approaches to new and existing areas of competition) when it believed emulation might elicit a negative reaction and a more effective approach was available. Beyond explaining the unique nature of China's rise, Upstart: How China Became a Great Power provides policy guidance on how the U.S. can maintain a competitive edge in this new era of great power competition.
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Mastro's thought-provoking book, which explores policy options from a US perspective, shows how China has successfully exploited gaps in the US-led global order. * James Kynge, Financial Times * Upstart is a must-read. Mastro provides a new way to understand how China has built its national power over the past thirty years. In doing so, she provides a clearer way forward for policymakers hoping to get China right. * Stephen Hadley, former National Security Advisor of the United States * Upstart applies the logic of business competition to China's drive for great power status, a framework that provides an original and illuminating perspective on Sino-U.S. relations. According to Mastro, although Beijing is modeling itself on America as a "great power," more often than not, it chooses not to emulate American-style power projection in order to avoid provoking a backlash. My take-away from Mastroas analysis is that while Chinaas ambition is inevitable, a smart U.S. strategy can avoid war by channeling it into peaceful competition. * Susan Shirk, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, founding chair of the 21st Century China Center and author of Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise * A fresh and insightful approach to understanding China's rise. Drawing on the business literature on competition, Upstart is theoretically stimulating and empirically sound. It is well worth reading by scholars and practitioners alike. * David Shambaugh, George Washington University, and author of China Goes Global * Full of new insights and breakthrough analysis, Upstart provides a clear-eyed, concise, and compelling new framework for understanding Chinese strategic thinking and behavior. It is an outstanding addition to the China field and a must-read for anyone interested in China's rise to power and what it means for the United States. * Elizabeth Charissa Economy, former Senior Foreign Advisor (for China) in the Department of Commerce and author of The World According to China * Oriana Skylar Mastro gives us the definitive work on the truly pernicious nature of the PRC's competitive strategy. As a result, Upstart clearly conveys the changes in relative power in the Indo-Pacific, and the opportunities available to the U.S. to manage them. There is much to be done and Orianaas work cogently points the way. An extraordinary read! * Phil Davidson, Admiral Phil Davidson U.S. Navy (retired) Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command 2018-2021 * Oriana Skylar Mastro has produced a compelling analysis of the most consequential competition of the coming century and how the United States and likeminded partners must compete to preserve peace and promote prosperity for generations to come. Upstart is a book to be read, debated, and applied to policy and strategy across the public and private sectors. * H.R. McMaster, former U.S. National Security Advisor and author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World * Oriana Skylar Mastro's book offers an original, provocative, and persuasive thesis of China's rise as a great power. Its meticulous research and lucid analysis illuminate China's grand strategy that has enabled the country to reach near parity with the U.S. Mastro's masterpiece not only helps us gain a better understanding of the past, but also provides valuable insights for policy makers as they wrestle with the China challenge today. * Minxin Pei, Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College and author of The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China * In targeting the US, China embarked on a flexible three-pronged approach to superpower status that blunted international backlash, protected Party legitimacy and normalized success. Oriana Skylar Mastro's penetrating and deeply intelligent analysis unravels the strategy behind China's challenge to US foreign policy, military and economic supremacy. By minimizing threat perceptions, China has both emulated and innovated pathways to global power and influence. * Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, former United States Trade Representative * Upstart is the rarest of books: serious and scholarly, yet still fun and punchy. By drawing on the business literature on competition, Oriana Skylar Mastro has given us an invaluable new intellectual framework with which to understand the Chinese Communist Party's grand strategy. Students, scholars, and policymakers at all levels should read Upstart to not only understand how China managed to close the gap with America over the past thirty years, but also jumpstart America's efforts to compete more successfully over the next thirty years. * Rep. Mike Gallagher, Chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party * Oriana Mastro suggests that, China has grown strong by rationally employing a mix of emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurial policies in the face of changing American reactions across time. Thus it has achieved great power status without provoking an all-out containment response from the U.S. Mastro presents a well-researched and sophisticated challenge to simplistic power transition and realist accounts of Chinaas rise that are currently in vogue in Washington. * Alastair Iain Johnston, Professor of Government, Harvard University * Upstart provides a sophisticated framework for measuring great power status, and explains how China succeeded in rising to this status using a combination of approaches that capitalized on US weaknesses and Beijing's unique strengths. The book is invaluable for understanding both China and geopolitical competition today. * Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Director, Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, Stanford University * Oriana Skylar Mastro's Upstart provides a comprehensive explanation of China's dramatic rise to great power status in a competitive international environment. Mastro shows how the Chinese Communist Party leadership employed a strategy based upon a combination of emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship to gain influence in foreign policy, increase its military capabilities, and build its economic power. Her book will find an eager audience among scholars and policy makers alike. * Thomas G. Mahnken, Senior Research Professor, Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins SAIS and President and CEO, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments * Insightful and thoroughly researched ... Mastro innovatively explains the processes behind China's challenge and sets out strategic possibilities to counter it. * Kirkus Reviews * As such, this seminal book will appeal to both scholars and policy makers seeking to gain a deeper understanding of China... Highly recommended. * Choice * In Upstart: How China Became a Great Power, Oriana Mastro offers a salutary corrective to this kind of thinking. She argues persuasively that China has taken a different path to power than the United States, suited to its own capabilities and conditions. A soldier-scholar at Stanford's Institute for International Studies who enlisted in the Air Force early in her academic career, Mastro lays to rest some preconceived notions that afflict American thinking about Chinese military objectives. China, she writes, has adopted "an entrepreneurial strategy," meaning that China does things its own way for its own purposes. * David P. Goldman, Claremont Review of Books * Mastro offers a compelling thesis for understanding how Beijing was able to achieve such economic and military success without provoking sustained pushback from the United States. * Lyle J. Morris, The China Quarterly * A fresh framework for understanding China's rise by drawing from an unlikely source: the extensive scholarship on industry disruption in the business sector ... [Mastro] shed[s] light on the still protean multipolar world that is being shaped by the competition between Washington and Beijing. * Julian Gewirtz, Foreign Affairs *
Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She also continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she works as a strategic planner at Indo-Pacific Command. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016 and 2022.
She has published widely, including in Foreign Affairs, International Security, Security Studies, The Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Journal of Strategic Studies, and The Washington Quarterly. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. Her publications and other commentary can be found at www.orianaskylarmastro.com and on twitter @osmastro.
Autor*in
Assistant Professor of Political ScienceAssistant Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Figures and Tables
China>'s Rise to the Great Power Club
Chapter One: The Upstart Strategy
Chapter Two: Emulation and Exploitation in Foreign Policy
Chapter Three: Entrepreneurship in Chinese Foreign Policy
Chapter Four: Emulation and Exploitation in Chinese Military Strategy
Chapter Five: Entrepreneurship in Military Strategy
Chapter Six: Emulation and Exploitation in Chinese Economic Policy
Chapter Seven: Entrepreneurship in Chinese Economic Power
Conclusion: Lessons for Great Power Competition
