Includes index.

Introduction: on the danger of war -- A short history of the US-China relationship -- The problem of distrust -- Understanding Xi Jinping's worldview: ten concentric circles of interest -- The first circle: the politics of staying in power -- The second circle: securing national unity -- The third circle: ensuring economic prosperity -- The fourth circle: making economic development environmentally sustainable -- The fifth circle: modernizing the military -- The sixth circle: managing China's neighbourhood -- The seventh circle: securing China's maritime periphery - the Western Pacific, the Indo-Pacific, and the Quad -- The eighth circle: going west - the Belt and Road Initiative -- The ninth circle: increasing Chinese leverage across Europe, Africa, and Latin America and gaining an Arctic foothold -- The tenth circle: changing the global rules-based order -- America's emerging strategic response to Xi Jinping's China -- Xi Jinping's China in the 2020s: the politics of the Twentieth Party Congress -- The decade of living dangerously: alternative futures for US-China relations -- Navigating an uncertain future: the case for managed strategic competition -- Epilogue -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

"The relationship between the US and China, the world's two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. It rests on a seismic fault of cultural misunderstanding, historical grievance, and ideological incompatibility. No other nations are so quick to offend and be offended. Their militaries play a dangerous game of chicken, corporations steal intellectual property, intelligence satellites peer and AI technicians plot. The capacity for either country to cross a fatal line grows daily. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has studied, lived in, and worked with China for more than forty years, is one of the very few people who can offer real insight into the mindsets of the leadership whose judgement will determine if a war will be fought. This book demystifies the actions of both sides, explaining and translating them for the benefit of the other. Geopolitical disaster is still avoidable, but only if these two giants can find a way to coexist without betraying their core interests through what Rudd calls "managed strategic competition". Should they fail, down that path lies the possibility of a war that could rewrite the future of both countries, and the world." -- Back cover.