No more than American bankers, European industrialists, or Arab oil producers could they escape the gravitational force of China’s giant growth machine, but they had immediate reason to be concerned about China’s aggressive new stance on the South China Sea and its bullying attitude toward weaker trading partners. China’s new scale could not be reversed. If it were to be, it would be an economic, a social, and likely a political disaster. The question was how to contain, institutionalize, and frame the new balance of power.
