US-China Rivalry offers a holistic analysis of the unfolding of US-China competition in the Indo-Pacific, using a novel theory called neo-offensive realism. It synthesises quantitative and qualitative data to examine the intensification of US-China competition across the Indo-Pacific in recent years, with a focus on why the competition is intensifying under the interplay of system-level and unit-level forces; where the competition is unfolding across states and quasi-states in the region; how the competition is conducted through economic and military influence mechanisms; and whither the competition is developing in the future.

"A methodologically rigorous and theoretically ambitious study that enhances our understanding of U.S.–China relations...Fong’s work is a significant contribution to the field, offering profound insights for scholars and policymakers alike and underscoring U.S.–China competition as one of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century." - Politische Vierteljahresschrift

"Brian Fong offers an all-too-uncommon marriage of parsimonious theory and its credible application to empirical reality in what is arguably the world’s most contested, high-stakes region today and for the foreseeable future. His scholarly analysis identifies and traces essential elements that policy-makers face and must understand beyond the fleeting manifestations they perceive in a given context. This is a brilliant and timely book." - Professor of Strategy, China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College

"US-China Rivalry is a well-researched and empirically rich study that covers a wide range of cases. While Fong emphasizes system-level forces as the primary drivers of great-power politics, he also demonstrates how unit-level forces can accelerate or slow a state’s responses, reinforcing but not replacing a structural realist explanation. A key contribution of the book is its examination of great-power competition beyond military dynamics over states and quasi-states, particularly through economic means and influence. Fong offers a wealth of empirical detail on where and how great powers compete for influence, while his scenario analysis provides valuable policy insights for the future." - Professor of Political Science at Western Michigan University

"Brian Fong has offered a timely contribution to the debates on Asia’s geopolitical future. He usefully contextualizes the United States and China’s twenty-first century rivalry against the past “great games” and great power struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Most of all, his neo-offensive realism is a welcome effort to better integrate state-level characteristics into its structural analysis." - Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware