Since becoming president of China and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping has emerged as China's most powerful and popular leader since Deng Xiaoping. The breathtaking economic expansion and military modernization that Xi inherited has convinced him that China can transform into a twenty-first-century superpower.

In this collection, leading scholars from the United States, Asia, and Europe examine both the prospects for China's continuing rise and the emergent and unintended consequences posed by China's internal instability and international assertiveness. Contributors examine domestic challenges surrounding slowed economic growth, Xi's anticorruption campaign, and government efforts to maintain social stability. Essays on foreign policy range from the impact of nationalist pressures on international relations to China's heavy-handed actions in the South China Sea that threaten regional stability and US-China cooperation. The result is a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of current policy trends in Xi's China and the implications of these developments for his nation, the United States, and East Asia.

About the Authors
Robert S. Ross is professor of political science at Boston College and associate professor at the John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University. He is the author of Chinese Security Policy: Structure, Power, and Politics.

Jo Inge Bekkevold is the head of the Center for Asian Security Studies at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies and coeditor of Security, Strategy and Military Change in the 21st Century: Cross-Regional Perspectives.