This book is important for three main reasons. First, it enhances our understanding of one of the most important bilateral relationships of our era. Sino-American relations have moved in regular cycles between periods of hostility and somewhat grudging coexistence since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Most of the rest of the world has been affected by the changing state of those relations: they have had a major impact on regional security, on great power alignments, and on the central norms of the global system that involve matters of war and peace. In the early twenty-first century, we have arrived at a point where the relationship is perceived to have stabilized. For some, it warrants the description that it is the best it has ever been, or at least the best since President Nixon's landmark visit to China in 1972. Dr. Goh's study offers an opportunity to reflect on that comparison, usefully reminding us of some of the factors that contribute to a continuing fragility in those bilateral ties. Above all, her work helps us to understand what has made it possible for negative U.S. images of China to be transformed into descriptions of the country that are positive enough to permit bilateral cooperation in the three major domains of security, economics, and culture.

Second, the study is particularly valuable because of its approach.