China has long exerted a fascination for westerners. From the opium wars to the dying days of colonialism in the early 20th century, the imperial powers - Britain, Germany, France, Italy and latterly Japan and the US - sought their slice of the Chinese empire. What drove the imperial powers was the prospect of trade. China, with its mineral resources and vast population, was seen as a vast untapped resource governed by a fanatically inward-looking and atrophied imperial bureaucracy. The opium wars were fought to force China to allow British merchants to sell the highly-dangerous drug to Chinese.

But it was not until President Nixon's famous visit to China in the 1970s and the possibility of using the Chinese as a counterweight to the USSR that the West began to take notice of China as a genuine trading partner.

This view became urgent as the USSR abandoned communism and adopted the free market. As the global market reaches saturation point, this has left China as the last great frontier for market forces and the world's great corporations are lining up for a slice of the pie. Despite the stresses and strains posed for communism with its headlong retreat, the Chinese model seems pretty robust.

In this book, the questions of what to do with China and what China will do with the rest of the world are addressed.

One of the great notion of liberal free market philosophy is that where the free trade takes hold, so does democracy. This notion has been rudely dispelled by the experience of many Far Eastern and South American countries and even by Japan, whose democratic culture is radically different to that of the West. The authors see this as a grave mistake by westerners and this view is expressed by the late Deng Xiaoping who regarded the Soviet experiment as flawed because it allowed political freedom before revamping the economy. Deng's view was economic modernisation first and political reform much, much later, if ever. The evidence of China's GDP trebling since 1985 and the dire straits of the former Soviet Union seem to bear out Deng's argument.

In dealing with China, the book warns the West will have to revise its rather elitist view that its principles and mores are superior, whether culturally, economically and politically. China, they say, will have to be dealt with on its own terms. If the West fails to do so, it will have dire consequences for the world.

A China that is growing, prosperous and successful will contribute greatly to world trade and stability but, the authors warn, a China that fails in its march towards economic reform, like Russia seems to be, will be a massive destabilising influence, with massive resources diverted by the West, especially the US, towards defence and the possible resumption of a new cold war.

For the US, where 200,000 well paid jobs depend on China, there is a growing fear that low labour costs in China will suck jobs out of the US. US companies have responded in the old-fashioned way - they have enthusiastically embraced the challenge.

Well over $20 billion has been poured into the country with all the great companies - Motorola, Microsoft, Coca Cola et al - vying for a foothold in the new world. Trade union worries over jobs are ignored on the grounds that the benefits (cheaper imports, bigger exports) far outweigh the deficits.

As in all these types of books, it is the prophesysing section that is the most interesting and this work does not disappoint. It fast forwards to 2024 where China has take its place alongside the US as the superpowers of the 21st century. Despite a few hiccupps, China and the West have settled down to trade but concerns over jobs heading eastwards have not gone away and the spectre of protectionism is still hovering. However, like today, this does not seem to have taken hold.

China has refused to adopt democratic principles and is still highly centralised, with the Communist Party controlling everything. The West (surprise, surprise) has learned to live with this as power and influence in the world continues to flow to the developing nations and the West (excluding the US) continues to decline (what this means for the EU is not really addressed).

The authors see a powerful China, secure in its economic and military strength, setting the agenda for the next century, basically assuming the role of the USSR in the 20th without the overwhelming baggage of communist versus democratic ideology. The potential for disastrous conflict is there but the authors seem confident that it will be avoided in the interests of peace and trade.

The book is written in that dense form beloved of American writers in the global view genre, with every couple of pages carrying chapter headings and sub headings. Its concerns are US-oriented but this does not take from its usefulness and its index is comprehensive and precise. An interesting and handy tool for those whose interest in China goes beyond the inscrutable oriental school of thinking and an interest in its food.