the only thing unusual about China is just how dynamic it has been. No country in the modern era has grown so fast for so long. No country in the modern era has seen its ability to change the world expand so dramatically. This being the case, it was always improbable that China would happily settle into America’s world, because doing so would have required accepting arrangements—such as U.S. protection of Taiwan and U.S. military alliances arrayed along China’s maritime periphery—that no great power would tolerate forever. It was inevitable that Beijing would want to subdue its geopolitical
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