Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
A Conversation with Susan L. Shirk
Meeting to be held virtually via ZOOM
Thursday, November 10, 2022 | 12:00 - 1:00pm EDT
Moderated by
Susan A. Thornton
Director, Forum on Asia-Pacific Security
NCAFP
For three decades after Mao's death in 1976, China's leaders adopted a restrained approach to foreign policy. They determined that any threat to their power, and that of the Chinese Communist Party, came not from abroad but from within—a conclusion cemented by the 1989 Tiananmen crisis. To facilitate the country's inexorable economic ascendance, and to prevent a backlash, they reassured the outside world of China's peaceful intentions.
Then something changed. China went from fragile superpower to global heavyweight, threatening Taiwan as well as its neighbors in the South China Sea, tightening its grip on Hong Kong, and openly challenging the United States for preeminence not just economically and technologically but militarily.
To help us analyze this new era in depth is Dr. Susan Shirk, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and professor at U.C San Diego. She will discuss research and experience in her new book, “Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise.” Ms. Susan A. Thornton, the director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at NCAFP, will facilitate this timely and important conversation.