Andrew Small
Andrew Small
Andrew Small is a senior transatlantic fellow with the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. His research focuses on China’s relations with the United States and Europe, and broader developments in Chinese foreign and economic policy, which have seen him give Congressional testimony on topics ranging from China’s dealings with the Taliban to its handling of the eurozone crisis.
Andrew was previously the director of the Foreign Policy Centre’s Beijing office, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a visiting fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Australian National University’s National Security College, and an ESU scholar in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. His articles and papers have been published in Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, Foreign Policy and the Washington Quarterly, as well as many other journals, magazines and newspapers. His 2018 essay on China and the Belt and Road backlash was named in the Washington Post’s ‘Albie’ awards as one of the ten best works on political economy published that year.
He is the author of The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics, published by Hurst Publishers in the UK, Oxford University Press in the U.S., and Penguin Random House in India. The book was widely praised, including as ‘an excellent book’ by Anatol Lieven in the New York Review of Books, ‘ground-breaking’ by Nayan Chanda in The Times of India, and ‘gripping because he has […] built up lines with spies, diplomats and soldiers to uncover a secretive and poorly understood relationship’ by Mark Leonard in the New Statesman. A full list of reviews is available on Andrew’s website, along with further information about his journalism and media appearances.
Born in Leeds, Andrew was educated at Balliol College, University of Oxford. He lives between Berlin and Washington, DC.
Books
The Rupture: China and the Global Race for the Future
Rights
Endorsements
Detailed and clear-sighted, this is a valuable report on a consequential global rivalry.
Small ably traces how China went from partner to rival to threat and maps out the challenges that it now poses for the West.
[A] fast-paced and deeply researched book.
A compelling, first-person perspective on the West’s awakening to the systemic challenges posed by China.
Four years ago, Emmanuel Macron remarked that the era of European naivety on China was over. As Andrew Small establishes in his book The Rupture, the shift was not born primarily of US pressure to pick sides—though that was unquestionably felt—but of Europe's own dealings with Beijing.
Anyone who wants to understand the rethinking of China policy that has taken place in recent years, and Beijing's challenge to Germany and to Europe, must read this smart and compelling account by one of the best-informed insiders.
The most important book about China written in the past decade. A gripping narrative of great poignancy; a must-read for anyone trying to make sense of the biggest story of our times.
Thanks to his extensive involvement in Europe's interaction with China, Small's account provides a degree of immediacy and detail lacking in most books on the subject. A sobering story of how a well-intentioned and initially promising European effort of engagement ended in bitter disappointment for both sides.
Over the past decade, democracies have started to recognise the economic, technological and ideological challenges posed by China to their prosperity and security. Small is uniquely well positioned to tell the story of this still-incomplete awakening. Essential reading.
In incisive analysis, this fills gaps in our understanding of the sources of China's conduct and of the multiple considerations that determine European actions towards China.
Synopsis
**Published in North America as No Limits: The Inside Story of China's War with the West**
The gripping story of a turning point in global affairs, as politicians belatedly awaken to serious systemic threats.
This is the inside story of a revolution in China policy, from Washington to Brussels, Berlin to New Delhi. No Limits explains how many of the Western politicians, thinkers and business leaders closest to Beijing have become its sharpest opponents; how the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated this collective rethink; and why 5G represented the first test case as to whether China may win the battle for the future.
Noted China expert Andrew Small offers a kaleidoscopic picture of a rivalry ranging far beyond ‘great power’ politics. He traces US efforts to recast relations with old allies, as Washington realises that it cannot confront China alone, charting Europe’s growing role in the technological and economic contest, and Beijing's attempts to build a coalition of its own, from Moscow to Taliban-run Kabul.
The result is an engaging, lucid and even-handed account of the defining geopolitical issue of our age.
