1. President Donald Trump, televised address, August 21st 2017.

2. Chinese President Xi Jinping keynote speech May 14, 2017, opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China.

3. Chinese President Xi Jinping July 1 2017 speech to mark the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover.

4. China, Europe and the Great Divergence: Stephen Broadberry, Hanhui Guan, David Daokui Li, University of Oxford, April 2017.

5. Ancestors: The story of China told through the lives of an extraordinary family, Frank Ching.

6. Walter Pincus, “Eisenhower Advisers Discussed Using Nuclear Weapons in China,” Washington Post, April 30, 2008.

7. National Security Archive, George Washington University, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb249.

8. M. H. Halperin, The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis: A Documented History (U), The Rand Corporation, December 1966 (declassified and abridged, March 18, 1975).

9. “Air Force Histories Released through Archive Lawsuit Show Cautious Presidents Overruling Air Force Plans for Early Use of Nuclear Weapons,” National Security Archives, April 30, 2008.

10. Three million is a Bangladesh government figure that claims this was the biggest genocide since the Nazi Holocaust. Lower estimates go down to half a million.

11. Elliot Brennan, Out of the “Slipstream” of Power? Australian Grand Strategy and the South China Sea Disputes (Stockholm: Institute for Security and Development Policy, 2017), 19–20.

12. Ibid., 20.

13. Elliott Brennan, “Australia’s 60-Year-Old South China Sea Prophecy Comes True,” Diplomat, June 12, 2017.

14. Brennan, Out of the “Slipstream” of Power?, 20.

15. The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia, Bill Hayton, 2014.

16. ibid.

17. Central Intelligence Agency, World Fact Book 2017.

18. George Yeo, “Special Lecture by George Yeo, Minister for Trade & Industry, Singapore, at the Golden Jubilee Anniversary of New Asia College, Hong Kong,” October 29, 1999, Government of Singapore, http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/speeches/view-html?filename=1999102902.htm.

19. “Cambodia Is Among the Latest of Several Asian Nations to Switch Partnerships from America to China,” Philadelphia Trumpet, April 16, 2017.

20. Michael Vatikiotis, Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in Modern Southeast Asia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2017).

21. Ibid.

22. Cal Wong, The Diplomat, November 29, 2016, https://thediplomat.co/2016/11/china-protests-singapores-military-exercise-with-taiwan/.

23. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, speaking at ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi, July 23, 2010.

24. Chinese Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, statement at ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi, July 26, 2010.

25. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, Foreign Policy, America’s Pacific Century, October 11, 2011.

26. President Barack Obama addressing Australian parliament, November 17, 2011.

27. Ullman, Harlan, Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Every War It Starts, Maryland, Naval Institute Press, 2017.

28. Kurt M. Campbell, The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia (New York: Twelve, 2016).

29. President Barack Obama addressing Australian parliament, November 17, 2011.

30. “Philippine Leader Sounds Alarm on China,” Keith Bradshaw, New York Times, February 2014.

31. “Philippines’ Aquino revives comparison between China and Nazi Germany,” Reuters, June 2015.

32. “The Killing Time: Inside Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs,” Time, August 2016 http://time.com/4462352/rodrigo-duterte-drug-war-drugs-philippines-killing/

33. BBC, “Philippines: Duterte Confirms He Personally Killed Three Men,” December 16, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38337746.

34. President Rodrigo Duterte, live television press conference, Davao City, the Philippines September 5, 2016.

35. Ed Adamczyk, “Philippines’ Duterte: ‘Only China Can Help us,’” UPI, October 18, 2016, https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/10/18/Philippines-Duterte-Only China-can-help-us/7641476798719/.

36. President Rodrigo Duterte speaking in Beijing October 20, 2016

37. “These Are the Bases the US Will Use Near the South China Sea,” Washington Post, March 21, 2016.

38. “These Are the Bases the US Will Use Near the South China Sea,” Washington Post, March 21, 2016.

39. General James Rusling, “Interview with President William McKinley,” The Christian Advocate, January 1903.

40. Ibid.

41. Central Intelligence Agency, World Fact Book https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

42. Jeff D. Colgan and Robert O. Keohane, “The Liberal Order Is Rigged,” Foreign Affairs, April 17, 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2017-04-17/liberal-order-rigged.

43. “Why the South China Sea Has More Oil Than You Think,” Forbes, May 22, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/timdaiss/2016/05/22/why-the-south-china-sea-has-more-oil-than-you-think/.

44. Mikkal E. Herberg, The Role of Energy in Disputes over the South China Sea, Maritime Awareness Project, June 28, 2016, http://maritimeawarenessproject.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/07/analysis_herberg_062816.pdf, 2.

45. Ibid.

46. Interviews with author January 2017.

47. British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, BBC Interview, December 1988.

48. Central Intelligence Agency, World Fact Book https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/.

49. Charlotte Alfred, “India’s New Parliament Has the Most Members Facing Criminal Charges in a Decade,” World Post, May 23, 2014.

50. John Elliott, Implosion: India’s Tryst with Reality (Noida, India: HarperCollins India, 2014.

51. Naina Sharma, “Spike in Honour Killings: Need a New Law to Save Young Couples,” Quint, May 27, 2017.

52. Poloumi Basu and Evelyn Nieves, “In Nepal, a Monthly Exile for Women,” New York Times, January 5 2017.

53. Humphrey Hawksley, “Why India’s Brick Kiln Workers Live Like Slaves,” BBC, January 2, 2014.

54. International Labour Organization, “Forced Labor, Modern Slavery, and Human Trafficking,” http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/lang—en/index.htm.

55. “The Gujarat Model,” Economist, January 8, 2015.

56. Saeed Naqvi, Being the Other: The Muslim in India (New Delhi: Aleph, 2016.

57. Shyam Bhatia, Goodbye Shahzadi: A Political Biography of Benazir Bhutto (New Delhi, Roli Books, 2008).

58. China behind Pak’s growing confidence, supplies 63% of Islamabad’s arms need,” Hindustan Times, September 2016.

59. India is not Changings its Policy on No First Use of Nuclear Weapons, Abhijnan Rej, War on the Rocks, March 29, 2017.

60. “Global nuclear weapons: downsizing but modernizing,” SIPRI, June 2016.

61. “Will Pakistan Soon Have the World’s Third-Largest Nuclear Arsenal?” The Diplomat, August 2015.

62. A Normal Nuclear Pakistan, Toby Dalton, Michael Krepon, Stimson Center and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2015.

64. “The String of Pearls and the Maritime Silk Road,” China-U.S. Focus, February 2014.

65. “Beijing’s nuclear subs coming again, India concerned,” The Sunday Times (India), October 2014.

66. How Sri Lanka Won the War, Peter Layton, The Diplomat, April 9, 2015

67. William H. Avery, China’s Nightmare, America’s Dream: India as the Next Global Power, Amaryllis, New Delhi, 2012.

68. “China and Sri Lanka: Between a Dream and a Nightmare,” The Diplomat, November 2016.

69. Indian spy’s role alleged in Sri Lankan president’s election defeat, Reuters, January 17, 2015.

70. “Seychelles committed to Indian naval base,” The Hindu, March 2016.

71. The String of Pearls and the Maritime Silk Road, China Org.Cn February 12, 2014.

72. “Li vows to protect rights of Chinese working abroad,” China Daily, May 5, 2014.

73. “The belt-and-road express: China faces resistance to a cherished theme of its foreign policy,” The Economist, May 2017.

74. Ministry of External Affairs, India, Official Spokesperson’s response to a query on participation of India in OBOR/BRI Forum, May 13, 2017.

75. John Elliott, Implosion: India’s Tryst with Reality (Noida, India: HarperCollins India, 2014).

76. “India’s Act East Policy: Strategic Implications for the Indian Ocean Region,” The Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, October 2016.

77. “India Sends Stealth Warships to South China Sea,” The Diplomat, May 2016.

78. Jeff M. Smith, Cold Peace: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the 21st Century (Lexington Books, Maryland, 2014.

79. Duo Mo, Global Times India’s provocation will trigger all-out confrontation on LAC, July 2017.

80. Ibid.

81. Brahma Chellaney, “India’s Refusal to Bend Showed the World How to Deal with Chinese Coercion,” Daily Mail India, September 1, 2017, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-4845618/India-s-refusal-bend-Doklam-standoff-China.html.

82. Liu Zhun, India overestimates its South China Sea leverage, Global Times, November 8, 2016.

83. “More than twenty thousand Japanese enterprises invest in China,” XinhuaNet, April 11, 2017.

84. Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, in a speech marking marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, August 14, 2015.

85. “Chinese Warships Prepared To Fire On The Japanese Navy Twice,” Business Insider, February 2013.

86.“Japan’s pacifist constitution: After 70 years, nation changes the rules so it can go to war,” Independent, July 2014.

87. Abe’s Faustian flirtation with specter of war, China Daily, July 1, 2014.

88. “Do Economic Ties Limit the Prospect of Conflict?” The Rand Blog, August 2016.

89. “The World’s Most Dangerous Rivalry: China and Japan,” The National Interest, September 2014.

90. Xi Jinping blasts Japan’s wartime atrocities at high-profile Nanking massacre memorial, South China Morning Post, December 13, 2014.

91. Sun Yat-sen, President Republic of China, speech on Pan-Asianism in Kobe, Japan November 28, 1924.

92. Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945, Naval Institute Press, 2007.

93. The Writings of Stephen B. Luce, Edited with Commentary by John D. Hayes and John B. Hattendorf, Naval War College Press, Newport, Rhode Island, 1975.

94. Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945, Naval Institute Press, 2007.

95. John W. Lillard, Playing War: Wargaming and U.S. Navy Preparations for World War II, Potomac Books, 2016.

96. Commander C. W Nimitz, “Policy,” US Naval War College, Class of 1923.

97. RAND Corporation, War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016).

98. RAND Corporation, War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016).

99. Bruce W. Bennett, Preparing North Korean Elites for Unification (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017), ix.

100. “N. Korean Missiles Have Russian Roots, Explosive Theory Suggests,” Los Angeles Times, September 2000.

101. “The Long History of the Pakistan-North Korea Nexus,” The Diplomat, August 2016.

102. “Trump Inherits a Secret Cyberwar Against North Korean Missiles,” New York Times, March 4, 2017.

103. “Ballistic Missile Defense Intercept Flight Test Record” Missile Defense Agency,” February 28, 2017.

104. “Barack Obama Warns Donald Trump on North Korea Threat,” Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2016.

105. “An Unprecedented Look At Stuxnet, The World’s First Digital Weapons,” Wired, March 11, 2013.

106. Bill Gertz, iWar: War and Peace in the Information Age (New York: Threshold, 2017).

107. Ibid.,

108. Ibid.,

109. Ibid.,

110. How ‘The Interview’ screenwriter Dan Sterling became ‘the guy that brought down Sony’, The Frame, December 15, 2014.

111. Gertz, Bill. iWar: War and Peace in the Information Age. New York: Threshold, 2017.

112. Reuters, December 22, 2002.

113. Selig S Harrison, “Did North Korea Cheat?” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2005.

114. Ibid.,

115. “Q&A: Richard L. Garwin, Expert on Nuclear Weapons,” IEEE Spectrum, October 2006.

116. Selig S Harrison, “Did North Korea Cheat?” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2005.

117. “Getting Tough on North Korea: How to Hit Pyongyang Where It Hurts,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2017.

118. Ibid.,

119. Ibid.,

120. “Trump Says He’d Meet With Kim Jong Un Under Right Circumstances,” Bloomberg News, May 1, 2017.

121. James Anderlini, “North Korea makes public its paranoia over China”, Financial Times, May 18, 2016.

122. James Anderlini, “North Korea Makes Public Its Paranoia Over China,” Financial Times, May 2016.

123. “North Korean Media, in Rare Critique of China, Says Nuclear Program Will Continue,” New York Times, May 4, 2017.

124. “Why China Won’t Rescue North Korea”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2018 Issue.

125. Navy Visual News Service, March 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvQjwAE4w4.

126. Conor M. Kennedy and Andrew S. Erickson, China Maritime Report, March 1, 2017.

127. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, “Chinese Poachers Destroying Coral Reefs”, BBC News Magazine, December 15, 2015 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-35101121/chinese-poachers-destroying-coral-reefs

128. More than 90 percent of world’s coral reefs will die by 2050,” Independent, March 2017.

129. Edward A. McCord, “One China, Dual Recognition: A Solution to the Taiwan Impasse”, The Diplomat, June 20, 2017

130. President Xi Jinping of China speaking at the opening ceremony of the 19th Communist Party congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, October 16, 2017.

131. PRC: 2004 White Paper on National Defense, https://fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/natdef2004.html#1.

132. Ian Easton, The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia (Arlington, VA: Project 2049 Institute, 2017.

133. Peter Navarro, “Chinese Bullying is Drying up Sources of Trade,” National Interest, July 2016.

134. Parag Khanna, Connectography: Mapping the Global Revolution, Random House, 2016.

135. James R. Holmes, “Monroe Doctrines in Asia,” The Diplomat, June 2011.

136. Kurt M. Campbell, The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia (New York: Twelve, 2016).

137. “Global Trends, Paradox of Progress,” National Intelligence Council, January 2017.

138. Ibid.,

139. Kenneth Lieberthal, Wang Jisi “Addressing U.S.-China Strategic Mistrust,” Brookings, March 2012.

140. Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017).

141. Gideon Rachman, Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century, Bodley Head, 2016.

142. David C. Gompert, Astrid Stuth Cevallos, Cristina L. Garafola, War with China Thinking Through the Unthinkable, RAND Corporarion, Santa Monica, 2016.

143. Ibid.

144. Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, USN (retired), Becoming a Great Maritime Power: A Chinese Dream. The Center for Naval Analysis, Arlington, June, 2016.

145. Harlan Ullman, The Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Every War It Starts, Maryland, Naval Institute Press, 2017.

146. Amitai Etzioni, “The Day After: China Edition Say the U.S. emerges as the victor in a war with China. What comes next”, The Diplomat, May 11, 2017.

147. Senate confirmation hearing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, January 11, 2017.

148. The Bretton Woods or UN Monetary and Financial Conference was held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in July 1944 to discuss mechanisms for a post-war international financial system.

149. Kissinger, Henry. World Order, New York, Penguin Press, 2014.

150. Stewart, Rory, Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq, London, Picador, May 2007.

151. Sun Yat-sen, President Republic of China, speech on Pan-Asianism in Kobe, Japan November 28, 1924.

152. Institute of International Education.

153. Ellen Sheng, “China Investment In The U.S. Hit An All-Time High In 2016, But Don’t Expect The Same In 2017.” Forbes magazine, December 18, 2016.

154. Brown, Kerry, New Emperors: The Power and the Princelings in China, New York, Tauris, 2014.

155. “The Trade Origins of Economic Nationalism: Import Competition and Voting Behavior in Western Europe,” Italo Colantone and Piero Stanig, Baffi Carefin Centre Research Paper Series, January 2017.

156. “A EUROPE FOR THE MANY, NOT THE FEW Time to reverse the course of inequality and poverty in Europe”, Oxfam Briefing Paper, September 9, 2015.

157. US Bureau of Labour Statistics.

158. US Bureau of Labour Statistics.

159. Michael Gove interview with Sky News June 3, 2016.

160. “How America Lost Faith in Expertise,” Tom Nichols, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2017.

161. “Trust in Government: 1958-2015, Pew Research Center, November 23, 2015.

162. Chinese President Xi Jinping speaking at World Economic Forum, Davos, January 17, 2017.

163. Ibid.

164. Zheping Huang, “Chinese president Xi Jinping has vowed to lead the “new world order” Quartz, February 22, 2017.

165. Chinese President Xi Jinping keynote speech at Belt and Road forum in Beijing May 14, 2017 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-05/14/c_136282982.htm

166. Aditya Chakrabortty Forced Student Labour is Central to Chinese Economic Miracle, the Guardian, October 14, 2013.

167. Carrie Gracie, “Tales from the New Silk Road, BBC News, July 20, 2017 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/new_silk_road.

168. Malcolm Moore, “China Abolishes Its Labour Camps and Releases Prisoners”, The Telegraph, January 2014.

169. Parag Khanna, Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilisation (New York: Random House, 2016).

170. Ibid.

171. Admiral Harry Harris at Defense One Leadership Briefing November 14, 2016.

172. Kirk Spitzer, “The New Head of the U.S. Pacific Command Talks to TIME About the Pivot to Asia and His Asian Roots”, Time magazine, May 25, 2015 http://time.com/3895434/admiral-harry-harris-us-pacific-command-china-japan-asia/

173. Jim Sciutto, “Exclusive: China warns U.S. surveillance plane”, CNN, September 15, 2015 http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/20/politics/south-china-sea-navy-flight/index.html

174. “Stolen Island: the shameful story of Diego Garcia hits the stage,” The Guardian, February 2012.

175. “Gambia announces withdrawal from International Criminal Court”, Reuters, October 26, 2016.

176. “Israel has ignored resolution to stop settlements in Palestinian territories, UN says,” Independent, March 2017.

177. Interview with author, June 6, 2017.

178. “Russia and China to Sign Joint Declaration on Principles of International Law,” Kenneth Anderson, Lawfare, June 2016.

179. “ROC position on the South China Sea Arbitration,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs, July 2016.

180. To the author from Taipei representative office in London.

181, Lawrence Summers, “A global wake-up call for the U.S.?” Washington Post, April 5, 2015.

182. “US Congress pushed China into launching AIIB, says Bernanke,” Financial Times, June 2, 2015.

183. Why America Doesn’t Welcome China’s New Infrastructure Bank,” The World Post, April 2017

184. Ian Bremmer, Every Nation for Itself: What Happens When No One Leads the World (New York: Portfolio, 2012).

185. Geoff Dyer, Jamil Anderlini, Henry Sender, “China’s lending hits new heights” Financial Times, January 17, 2011.

186. “Mau Mau torture victims to receive compensation–Hague,” BBC, June 6, 2013.

187. Soutik Biswas “How Churchill Starved India,” BBC, October 28, 2010.