Book excerpt: ‘China’, Napoleon once remarked, ‘is a sleeping lion. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world.’ In 2014, President Xi Jinping triumphantly declared that the lion had awoken. From holding its ground in trade wars with the US, to presenting itself as a world leader in the fight against climate change, a newly confident China is flexing its economic muscles for strategic ends. With the Belt and Road initiative, billed as a new Silk Road for the 21st Century, China is set to extend its influence throughout Eurasia and across the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. But with the Chinese and US militaries also vying over the Pacific, does this newfound confidence put China on a collision course with the US? Combining a geopolitical overview with on-the-ground reportage from a dozen countries, this new edition of China’s Asian Dream engages with the most recent developments in the ongoing story of China’s ascendency, and offers new insights into what the rise of China means not only for Asia, but for the world.