IN November 2019, I wrote a piece on the rise of China based on the book of our Harvard Dean Graham Allison — Destined for War (2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). The book described China's reappearance on the world stage as a superpower "...after an absence of more than two hundred years. It may be recalled that ancient China, the Middle Kingdom, was dominant in Asia for thousands of years before it was eclipsed by the West that began during the Age of Discovery in the early 16th century."