Jae Ho Chung is professor and chair of international relations at Seoul National University and author of Central Control and Local Discretion in China and Between Ally and Partner: Korea-China Relations and the United States.

China has become an undisputed global phenomenon, yet twenty-five years ago, its remarkable accomplishments were largely unforeseen. In an ambitious effort to predict China's coming decades, this book explores not only the economic development that has been a key indicator of its success but the often veiled political, social, and international determinants that will be crucial. Leading scholars draw on their years of experience and on-the-ground understanding of current trends to make informed estimates of China's path, positing that its future may well hold neither threat nor collapse. All of the contributors provide a set of scenarios and order them in terms of likelihood, including the seven factors they have identified as central to charting China's future: the Communist Party, local electoral reforms and rule of law, the federalist possibility, social unrest, foreign policy orientations, Sino-American relations, and the Taiwan conundrum. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand China as it rises in power on the world stage.
Contributions by: Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Jae Ho Chung, Bruce J. Dickson, Peter Hays Gries, Tao-chiu Lam, Yawei Liu, Gilbert Rozman, and Shiping Tang

Chapter 1: Forecasting China's Future: Scenarios, Uncertainties, and Determinants
Chapter 2: The Future of the Chinese Communist Party: Strategies of Survival and Prospects for Change
Chapter 3: The Rule of Law and Electoral Processes: Present and Future Forecasts
Chapter 4: The Federalist Possibility? Breaking the Chinese Exceptionalism
Chapter 5: Assessing the Odds against the Mandate of Heaven: Do the Numbers (on Instability) Really Matter?
Chapter 6: Projecting China's Foreign Policy: Determining Factors and Scenarios
Chapter 7: The Future of United States-China Relations: System, State, and Individual-Level Drivers
Chapter 8: The Taiwan Conundrum
Chapter 9: What Chinese Characteristics? Looking to the Past for Clues about the Future