No Limits: The Inside Story of China’s War with the West

China is challenging the West’s economic, military, and political power, as well as its democratic vision for humanity, according to this insightful study. Foreign policy analyst Small (The China-Pakistan Axis) sketches the history of U.S.–China relations since 2001, when Beijing slashed tariffs and opened major industries to foreign competition in order to enter into the World Trade Organization. The optimism Western democracies felt about partnering with China has dimmed, however, as giant tech Huawei began to dominate the 5G market in recent years. Small notes that the West was just beginning to coalesce against China’s anticompetitive behavior when Covid-19 broke out in Wuhan. Despite the E.U. providing nearly 60 metric tons of medical material to China, Beijing launched a disinformation campaign alleging that the virus originated in the U.S. or Italy. China also took advantage of the crisis to rush Hungary into a “highly contentious railway deal that the E.U. had been trying to block” and ignored Western entreaties to refrain from actively supporting Russia after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. According to Small, Chinese officials were impressed with Vladimir Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and believe that a Sino-Russian alliance will boost China’s global position. Detailed and clear-sighted, this is a valuable report on a consequential global rivalry. (Nov.)