Overview: Competition between the world’s two strongest powers is inevitable, but myths and misperceptions prevent a clear understanding of the fundamental realities driving Sino-US rivalry. It is time to dispel the myths and provide the facts.

Verdict: What this book - Everyone Is Wrong About China: The Myths and Realities of Sino-US Competition by author Brendan O’Reilly - dutifully explains are the key areas of contention between Beijing and Washington, uncovering the realities behind important economic, military, and diplomatic trends.

It also presents detailed predictions on how the rivalry will likely unfold over the coming years and decades. Sino-US competition is the most important geopolitical fact of the 21st Century. Anyone seeking to succeed and thrive in an uncertain future must understand the drivers and contours of the world’s most influential bilateral relationship.

OK, and because I myself didn’t know before opening this book, Sino is a prefix used in English to denote a connection to China, as in the term U.S.-Sino or Sino-American. Indeed, the relationship between the United States and China is currently characterized by a complex strategic competition, involving both conflict and cooperation, as seen in recent trade disputes and agreements, technology competition, and ongoing efforts to de-escalate tensions.

And now onwards and upwards and so in what is a most engaging, well written and highly educated take on the myths and realities of Sino-US competition and all that sail within her, so to speak, we learn more about the two nations and how they are still engaged in a trade war, with recent developments including Chinese export controls on rare earth elements and potential U.S. tariffs.

Reading the book along with having the knowledge of what is happening day by day in real time, we now know that a recent agreement framework aimed to avert further escalation of tariffs, one including a potential suspension of some controls was put forward, but has as of yet been brought into the light.

The common knowledge that there is intense competition in advanced sectors like artificial intelligence and semiconductors is as worrying to still read about today as it was back then and while the U.S. has an edge in certain technologies, China is making rapid progress in others albeit that the U.S. has implemented export restrictions on some advanced chips and such to China.

I guess, in summary, U.S.-China relations are defined by strategic competition across multiple domains. This includes economic, military, and political challenges, with recent summits and high-level talks focused on managing this rivalry and preventing outright conflict.

Thus here in his new prose on the subject to hand, and one where he impressively manages to debunk any and all erroneous myths, Brendan O’Reilly allows the information captured on the pages to percolate within our brains, never slamming us with facts after facts, and always showing his homework for anything he solidly believes to be the truth.

The world abounds with misconceptions and common fallacies about this subject matter and so what he has done here is sit us down and give us, for the most part in layman terms, the truth behind the smoke and mirrors of journalistic reporting over the years. All done in an educated, easy to read manner that once read will have you looking at the U.S.’s relationship with China in a whole different way, of that you have my word.

About the Author - Brendan O’Reilly is a writer and private intelligence analyst based in Maryland. He lived in China from 2009 to 2017 and is fluent in Mandarin. Brendan is the author of The Transcendent Harmony and Fifty Things You Didn’t Know About China. The BBC, the Diplomat, and Asia Times have featured Brendan’s geopolitical analysis.

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