The article presents Robert Lawrence Kuhn as a middle path on China: neither the Western stereotype of a one-dimensional authoritarian state nor an uncritical admirer of China’s speed and tech rise. That stance, it argues, is useful for the West and for countries such as India that must treat China as competitor, challenger, and possible partner.

Kuhn is offered as an unusually well-placed guide. He has worked in China since a 1988 invitation from Song Jian, visited more than 100 cities, written nearly 30 China books (notably How China’s Leaders Think, 2009), and received China’s Reform Friendship Medal in 2018. Xi Jinping’s New-Era China: The Inside Story (364 pages, Pentagon Press in India) covers Xi’s leadership from 2012 onward.

The review’s core claim is “context, not hagiography.” Kuhn treats “national rejuvenation” and the “Chinese Dream” as strategy, not slogans, while listing about 200 accusations against China over 14 pages in “Personal Perspective”—then declining both prosecution and........

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