It is a measure of how much China looms large in the minds of business analysts that barely a page goes by without a reference to the mainland in a book heralding the decline of US economic might.
In When Giants Fall, Michael Panzner sets out to tell the American reader that the days of US dominance are over and that any businessman worth his weight in inflation-hedging gold needs to prepare now to survive the days of chaos ahead.
However, the book is equally an extended essay about China's rise.
The China that emerges from the pages of the book is one of several challengers, including Russia, India and Iran, who are laying claim to a greater say in the international agenda. These countries are asserting their rights to and influence over resources in a world where populations are increasingly energy-dependent and water treatment and supplies are rapidly falling behind demand.
An age of prosperity created through mechanisms like trade agreements will give way to one in which the growth of one tribe of people will be at the expense of another. As countries scramble for resources and the agreed code of mutual prosperity breaks down, groupings like the World Trade Organisation will lose their influence and bilateral and regional agreements will increasingly replace multipolar accords.
According to Panzner, the globe is fast reaching the point where 'win-win' becomes 'zero sum'.
Although direct evidence of the mainland's economic miracle can be hard to find just half an hour from Beijing's city centre where rubbish collectors rent windowless, one-room shacks, broader indicators suggest how the country as a whole packs a punch. In Panzner's China, unsustainable investment booms have global impacts, the appetite for proteins like meat and fish is driving up the price of grain and ramped-up coal use casts a pall well beyond national borders.