From the author of In the Middle of the Future: Tom Plate on Asia-another substantial anthology of searching columns that tackle the really tough questions on where the U.S.-China rivalry and relationship may be headed.

"Plate has also gone beyond political elites to amplify the voices of ordinary Asians, to show how they are coming to terms with the dislocation and change that affect Americans as well in a globalised world - Plate appeals on page after page to Beijing to treat its political opponents with respect, not because the West demands this but because the Chinese deserve it. These are not novel arguments, but the strength of the book lies in the way the case is made consistently over 20 years, during which China's relations with the West witnessed several downturns. These included the confrontation of the mid-1990s, when the US Seventh Fleet intervened to keep the peace in the face of a Chinese military threat to Taiwan. Never, even during the height of such crises, did Plate waver in his commitment to the need for trust between two of the world's greatest powers. - In making a principled case for peace in the Pacific, Plate acts as a true friend of Asia. He is credible because he writes with the moral energy of a learned journalist intent on presenting a complex truth."-- Institute for Southeast Asian Studies Research Fellow ASAD LATIF, writing in the STRAITS TIMES (Singapore) "The world's biggest story is the rise of China. The world's biggest media is the Western media. The world's biggest mystery is how the world's biggest media got the world's biggest story wrong. This is why this book is worth reading. Tom Plate is one of the few Western journalists who have gotten the world's biggest story right." -- Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy "This book is terrific. Its calls for a journalism that respects the person interviewed and that goes beyond the Woodward-Bernstein process of revelation to a journalism of understanding apply at least as well to the domestic reporting we see in our papers and on-line. The insistence on listening as the major element of both journalism and foreign policy is something that is a cardinal truth. All this fine work is done in Tom Plate's inimitable conversational style that draws the reader in."-- International Lawyer and UCLA Adjunct Professor Barry Sanders