Crouching Tiger

September 14, 2015
Drawing on interviews with a host of experts, Navarro (Death by China), a macro-
economist at the UC Irvine’s Merage School of Business, paints a chilling, though didactic, picture of a future face-off between the U.S. and China in this companion piece to his documentary series, Death by China. The book is sliced into six parts; each brief chapter opens with a question as Navarro considers past conflicts in an attempt to peer into possible futures. At issue is Chinese hegemony and the potential threat held by the secret nuclear arsenal stored in its 3,000-mile-long “Great Underground Wall.” Estimates of the stockpile’s size range wildly from hundreds to thousands of warheads. Framing the discussion with the ancient conflict between established power Sparta and rising Athens, Navarro bases his argument on the theory of the “tragedy of great power politics” as set forth by University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer. Since many believe that any minor conflict—such as the recent one with Japan over the Senkaku Islands—could provoke the “crouching tiger” to pounce, paranoia fuels American thinking about China’s military buildup and the erosion of U.S. naval dominance in the Pacific. Navarro’s academic tone can overpower his message, but this is a useful survey of the foundations of U.S.-China hostility. Agent: Andrew Stuart, the Stuart Agency.