Daring to Struggle

Reviews / Votes

Daring to Struggle is a significant contribution to our understanding of those motivations, offering a response to that question that is both refreshing and often arresting. There are a number of reasons to appreciate the arrival of Bates Gill's contribution to this important enquiry. The scholarship he draws upon incorporates both primary materials as well as analysis from a wide range of secondary academic treatments. * Rosemary Foot, The China Quarterly * In this probing and engrossing study, leading China scholar Bates Gill has contributed the most comprehensive and in-depth assessment to date of China's global impact under strongman ruler Xi Jinping. Clearly conceptualized, well written, and based on granular research, it is filled with insights but troubling in its implications. Professor Gill argues that Xi's China has a big chip on its shoulder and is driven by an insatiable craving for respect-when married together with the attributes of hard power, he argues that this could be a combustible combination. Daring to Struggle should be carefully read by all serious China watchers. * David Shambaugh, George Washington University * Bates Gill offers the clearest picture yet of 'what China wants.' His well-structured study returns constantly to the Chinese Communist Party's elusive and dangerous search for legitimacy and points to the need for deep US engagement with allies and partners to navigate the Xi Era. * Michael J. Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies * At the very moment that China has moved to the center of global politics, Bates Gill has produced a Rosetta stone-like guide to understanding Xi Jinping's worldview. This book is essential reading for scholars, policymakers and business leaders alike. It provides an unusually lucid analysis of how Xi's China thinks about its role in the world and how Xi plans to achieve his global goals, which remain both inchoate and dynamic. Gill's aptly titled Daring to Struggle finds the right balance between analysis and forecasting in helping the reader fathom Chinese foreign policy today and in the future. * Evan Medeiros, Georgetown University * In this gripping new work, Bates Gill tackles what may be the most salient set of questions in international affairs - "what does China want?" And "how will it get what it wants?" The globe's future likely hinges on the answers to these questions. Daring to Struggle dares to try, employing the lens of six thematic drivers to explain the trajectory of China's ambitions, ultimately arguing that China will not shrink from any contest. This is a must-read book for both specialists and interested observers! * Roy D. Kamphausen, The National Bureau of Asian Research * The book even handedly summarises China's place in the current world: how it got there,...Gill deserves credit for making this deeply informative book very readable. It is an excellent, objective single volume primer on China's role in the contemporary world. * Christopher Ruane, Asian Affairs 54.2 * Recommended. Undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers. * Choice * I have rarely read such an interesting, comprehensive, clear and innovative book on China as this. Highly recommended. * Geoffrey Till, The Naval Review *