C. Fred Bergsten, Senior Fellow and Director Emeritus, was the founding director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (formerly the Institute for International Economics) from 1981 through 2012. He is a member of the President's Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations, a member of the Advisory Committee to the Export-Import Bank, and co-chairman of the Private Sector Advisory Group to the United States–India Trade Policy Forum, comprising the trade ministers of those two countries.

Charles Freeman holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. Previous to CSIS, he served as managing director of the China Alliance, a collaboration of law firms that help clients devise trade, investment, and government relations strategies in the United States and China. Prior to the China Alliance, he was assistant U.S. trade representative (USTR) for China affairs, the United States'' chief China trade negotiator, and played a primary role in shaping overall trade policy with respect to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and Mongolia. During his tenure as assistant USTR, he oversaw US efforts to integrate China into the global trading architecture of the World Trade Organization. He also negotiated and solved trade problems across a wide range of issues, including intellectual property rights protection; financial and nonfinancial services; tax, industrial standards, and technology policies; and agricultural market access. His career-long experience with China and other parts of Asia spans tours of duty in government, business, and the nonprofit sectors. Prior to joining the Office of the USTR, Freeman served as international affairs counsel to Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), where he advised on trade, foreign relations, and international energy matters, with particular focus on East Asia. In addition to his time with the China Alliance, his private-sector experience includes stints as a Hong Kong–based executive with the International Herald Tribune and as a Boston-based securities lawyer and venture capitalist concentrating on developing markets in Asia and Eastern Europe. In the nonprofit world, he was based in Hong Kong as director of economic reform programs in China and Taiwan for the Asia Foundation.

Nicholas R. Lardy is the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He joined the Institute in March 2003 from the Brookings Institution, where he was a senior fellow from 1995 until 2003. Before Brookings, he served at the University of Washington, where he was the director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies from 1991 to 1995. From 1997 through the spring of 2000, he was also the Frederick Frank Adjunct Professor of International Trade and Finance at the Yale University School of Management. He is an expert on the Chinese economy.

Derek J. Mitchell is the Special Representative and Policy Coordinator for Burma, with the rank of ambassador. Prior to this appointment, Amb. Mitchell served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, from April 2009 until August 2011. In that capacity, he was responsible for overseeing the Defense Department’s security policy in Northeast, Southeast, South, and Central Asia. Formerly he was a senior fellow and director for Asia in the CSIS International Security Program (ISP), having joined the Center in January 2001. Mitchell was special assistant for Asian and Pacific affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (1997–2001). He was the principal author of the Department of Defense (DOD) 1998 East Asia Strategy Report, and he received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Exceptional Public Service in January 2001. Prior to joining DOD, Mitchell served as senior program officer for Asia and the former Soviet Union at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Washington, D.C. From 1993 to 1997, he developed the Institute’s long-term approach to Asia and worked on democratic development programs in Armenia, Burma, Cambodia, Georgia, Pakistan, and Thailand. In 1989, he worked as an editor and reporter at the China Post on Taiwan. From 1986 to 1988, he served as assistant to the senior foreign policy adviser to Senator Edward M. Kennedy. He is the coauthor of China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities (2008), China: The Balance Sheet—What the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower (2006), and coeditor of China and the Developing World: Beijing's Strategy for the 21st Century (2007).

China has emerged as an economic powerhouse (projected to have the largest economy in the world in a little over a decade) and is taking an ever-increasing role on the world stage. China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities will help the United States and the rest of the world better comprehend the facts and dynamics underpinning China’s rise—an understanding that becomes more and more important with each passing day. Additionally, the authors suggest actions both China and the United States can take that will not only maximize the opportunities for China’s constructive integration into the international community but also help form a domestic consensus that will provide a stable foundation for such policies. Filled with facts for policymakers, this much anticipated book’s narrative-driven, accessible style will appeal to the general reader. This book is unique in that it analyzes the authoritative data on China’s economy, foreign and domestic policy, and national security.

The expert judgments in this book paint a picture of a China confronting domestic challenges that are in many ways side effects of its economic successes, while simultaneously trying to take advantage of the foreign policy benefits of those same successes. China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities from The China Balance Sheet Project, a joint, multiyear project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Peterson Institute, discusses China’s military modernization, China’s increasing soft power influence in Asia and around the world, China’s policy toward Taiwan, domestic political development, Beijing’s political relations with China’s provincial and municipal authorities, corruption and social unrest, rebalancing China’s economic growth, the exchange rate controversy, energy and the environment, industrial policy, trade disputes, and investment issues.

This book is part of the CSIS-IIE China Balance Sheet project. For more information about this project, please visit www.chinabalancesheet.org.