From its founding 65 years ago, the People's Republic of China has evolved from an important yet chaotic and impoverished state whose power was more latent than real into a great power on the cusp of possessing the largest economy in the world. Its path from the 1949 revolution to the present has been filled with twists and turns, including internal upheavals, a dramatic break with the Soviet Union, the 1989 revolution wave, and various wars and quasi-wars against India, the USSR, Vietnam, and South Korea. Throughout it all, international pressures have been omnipresent, forcing the regime to...