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From the former Financial Times Beijing bureau chief, a balanced and far-seeing analysis of the emerging competition between China and the United States that will dominate twenty-first-century world affairs--an inside account of Beijing's quest for influence and an explanation of how America can come out on top. The structure of global politics is shifting rapidly. After decades of rising, China has entered a new and critical phase where it seeks to turn its economic heft into global power. In this deeply informed book, Geoff Dyer makes a lucid and convincing argument that China and the United States are now embarking on a great power-style competition that will dominate the century. This contest will take place in every arena: from control of the seas, where China's new navy is trying to ease the United States out of Asia and reassert its traditional leadership, to rewriting the rules of the global economy, with attempts to turn the renminbi into the predominant international currency, toppling the dominance of the U.S. dollar. And by investing billions to send its media groups overseas, Beijing hopes to shift the global debate about democracy and individual rights. Eyeing the high ground of international politics, China is taking the first steps in an ambitious global agenda. Yet Dyer explains how China will struggle to unseat the United States. China's new ambitions are provoking intense anxiety, especially in Asia, while America's global influence has deep roots. If Washington can adjust to a world in which it is no longer dominant but still immensely powerful, it can withstand China's challenge. With keen insight based on a deep local knowledge--offering the reader visions of coastal Chinese beauty pageants and secret submarine bases, lockstep Beijing military parades and the neon media screens of Xinhua exported to New York City's Times Square--The Contest of the Century is essential reading at a time of great uncertainty about America's future, a road map for retaining a central role in the world.

When Guangdong Communist Party boss Wang Yang wanted to suggest some political readings for his underlings last year, he shunned Mao, Confucius, and other Chinese sages in favor of bestselling Israeli author Tal Ben-Shahar. The title he recommended was Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment. And Wang did not stop with a few musings on the benefits of positive psychology. Instead, he has made happiness a central part of the next five-year plan for Guangdong, the free-wheeling province in southern China whose official slogan is now "Happy Guangdong." The happiness craze is not an isolated incident. Since he took over as party secretary in 2007, Wang has encouraged a series of experiments that have tested the relationship between the state and citizen in China. For three decades, Guangdong has reveled in its position at the forefront of China's economic reforms. Adapted from the source document.