Since becoming president of China and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping has emerged as China's most powerful and popular leader since Deng Xiaoping. The breathtaking economic expansion and military modernization that Xi inherited has convinced him that China can transform into a twenty-first-century superpower.

In this collection, leading scholars from the United States, Asia, and Europe examine both the prospects for China's continuing rise and the emergent and unintended consequences posed by China's internal instability and international assertiveness. Contributors examine domestic challenges surrounding slowed economic growth, Xi's anti-corruption campaign, and government efforts to maintain social stability. Essays on foreign policy range from the impact of nationalist pressures on international relations to China’s heavy-handed actions in the South China Sea that challenge regional stability and US-China cooperation. The result is a comprehensive analysis of current policy trends in Xi's China and the implications of these developments for his nation, the United States, and Asia-Pacific.

"This is a masterful, well-written examination of Japanese politics." --Choice In a comparative framework, Pempel analyzes six major areas of domestic policy-making in Japan--administrative reform, economic policy, labor relations, social welfare, environmental policy, and higher education. Each case is accompanied by selected readings translated from official government documents and the writings of critics of official policy. The book offers an unusually strong point of view, one that is sure to invite debate. Pemple attempts to unravel the intertwined issues of the autonomy of the Japanese bureaucracy and the strength of the conservative coalition. He describes the weaknesses of opposition politics and labor but goes on to suggest how protest movements can be effective and how change can occur in the face of a powerful conservative consensus. The "economic miracle" of Japan, like the other policy areas, is realistically assessed in the context of events in other industrialized countries.