The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the Twenty-First Century. By Bernard D. Cole. [Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. x+288 pp. $34.95. ISBN 1-55750-239-0.]

Extract

Those who speculate on the course of future events have given much attention to the role that China's navy might play as a future rival to American naval power in the distant reaches of the new century. Some popular attention has been given to the idea that China, a country with the world's largest population and a rapidly growing economy and military, will soon put the next superpower navy to sea. Bernard Cole, a retired naval officer, now a dean and professor of international history at the National War College, presents quite a different picture.