Henry "Hank" Paulson, Jr. has a unique and intimate perspective on China's economic rise. As former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Paulson played a key role in introducing private capital to China's state-owned enterprises. As treasury secretary, Paulson created the highly successful Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) series and guided bilateral talks during global financial upheaval.

In his new book Dealing With China, Paulson draws on his uncommon level of access to modern China's political and business elite, including its three most recent heads of state, to answer several key questions: How did China become an economic superpower so quickly? What are the best ways for Western business and political leaders to work with, compete with, and benefit from China? How can the United States negotiate with and influence China given its "authoritarian rule," its massive environmental concerns, and its huge population's unrelenting demands for economic growth and security?

Paulson divides his 403-page book into three sections: Banking on Reform focusing on his work with Goldman Sachs; Breaking New Ground as head of the U.S. Treasury; and Building New Ground on his new think tank the Paulson Institute. The strength of his work is his caution against expecting China to fit into a Western mold. It would be "naive" to expect China to become exactly like the United States as it develops. While Paulson draws parallels between China and America's own rise as a world-leading economy, he also makes distinctions on China's unique heritage in Confucian values and the large role that state-owned enterprises play in development.

Sprinkled within the analysis and commentary is a wealth of private anecdotes that fascinate and illuminate the nature of high-level relations between the world's two largest economies. In one, Paulson writes of meeting with Gao Yan, former head of China's State Power Corp., the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. The Chinese executive (who as it happened later fled China in the wake of a $1 billion corruption scandal) came off as unsympathetic, preoccupied with making sure the restaurant played his favorite song and without a word of condolence on one of America's darkest days.

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