Almost all economic indicators show that the rise of China is all but inevitable. Many argue that it is already happening. China may rank as the second, or the third, or the fourth largest world economic power, depending on how one does the counting, after enjoying an average annual GDP growth rate of nearly 10% in the past quarter of a century (1983–2007) (National Bureau of Statistics of China). China currently has the largest foreign currency reserve in the world, reaching one trillion U.S. dollars (People's Bank of China) and China became the second largest trade country after the U.S. in 2007 (Wenweipo 2007). In fact, no discussion of world economy is adequate without talking about China. Even though the United States is currently embroiled in Iraq and the war on terror, there is no question that the rise of China is still very much in back of the minds of American foreign policy makers and political elites, especially during the current presidential campaigns. For instance, one survey of American international relations scholars reveals that while 58% of the scholars believe that the greatest strategically important region for the United States is the Middle East right now, 60% of them think it will be China and East Asia in 20 years (Peterson, Tierney, and Maliniak 2005). A public survey shows that a majority of the citizens in many developing countries think it would be a good thing if China were to become as large a military power as the United States (Pew Global Attitudes Project 2005).We would like to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. We also want express our gratitude to the 132 scholars who participated in our survey.