There's just one thing seriously wrong with this book: it needs an up-to-date edition. Overholt, a Harvard grad with a Yale PhD, now at RAND in Santa Monica, CA, wrote this book almost a decade ago, and much has happened since. I would gladly give a second edition the 6 stars it almost certainly deserves.

After Germany's unification, the Father of Modern Germany Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815-98) told the Reichstag in a speech on Feb. 6, 1888: "We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world." Well, the Chinese today fear nothing AT ALL and absolutely no one, not even the Iron Chancellor's God. More down to earth, they don't fear his Germans - or for that matter the British, the Russians, etc.

Overholt explains why this is so, and he does his job well. At times he seems to go overboard in his praises and optimism. Although events since the book's publication have amply confirmed his predictions, there is always room for caution. No one can predict the future. (Suppose a giant meteor from outer space falls into China, then even the best estimates are in vain.) In his memoirs Jack Welch of General Electric put it very well: predictions are often unreliable. He cited the prices of oil and the Japan "threat" as examples. (But Welch too makes a number of predictions at the end of his book, and the first is a bullish forecast of China!)

I think Overholt is right to put his faith in the Chinese people. A country's greatest resources are its people. They are the true source of wealth. Compared to America, China is actually very poor in natural resources - not as poor as Japan, but still very poor. But Japan has shown what it could do when a young, educated, intelligent, and determined people are well governed in a stable and enterprising system. By contrast, countries supposedly rich in natural resources like some in Africa and the Middle East fail to develop because their people lack these qualities. (When they run out of oil, etc., God help them....)

Nor is the Rise of China confined to the homeland. I think that ALL Chinese today are rising together, wherever they live. But the homebase is crucial. Overseas Chinese numbering in the tens of millions help fuel, catalyse and stimulate the growth in China with money and know-how, and benefit in turn from the boom.

It is now fashionable to be bullish on China. But it has not always been the case. Even today there are skeptics, like Bill Emmott of the Economist, who claims China is still "a modest country at best." (How the world's second largest economy, with 13% of the world's total and by far the fastest growth rate, can be described this way is beyond me.) Overholt was one of the first intelligent observers with both excellent academic credentials and plenty of field experience to write a credible book full of accurate facts and figures and penetrating analysis. (The late Jim Rohwer of Fortune magazine was another.)

One thousand years ago China was the greatest power in the world, richer than the rest of the world combined. This was about 1000 A.D. Then the crown passed on to the Mongols, who took it by force. But it didn't last. More recently America held a similar if less dominant position in 1945. (Today America's dominance is actually even less than it was at the end of the war, when it held 50% of the industrial capacity of the whole world.) It will take China centuries from now to regain its former position. But long before then, perhaps in our lifetime, China will rival America and Europe in power. The Rise of China has begun, and this book explains how it all began.

Hong Kong is the world leader in capitalism. This in the center of the worlds largest (socialist) country. As a former Hong Kong resident, I can assure you that this book gives an excellent, and easily read explination why the US will soon become the second largest economy in the world. If your a history buff, an economic enthusiest, or want to know the future, this is recommended reading.