Red Alert: How China's Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life.

• Author: Sweeney, Paul
• Position: BOOKSHELF

If Paul Revere were alive today, our Revolutionary War hero would likely be riding through the American countryside, sounding the alarm: "The Chinese are coming. The Chinese are coming."

Which is essentially the tone that Stephen Leeb adopts in Red Alert, a provocative prophesy with the semi-apocalyptic subtitle, "How China's Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life." The U.S and China, he argues, are locked in a bitter struggle for global economic dominance. Yet neither the U.S.'s political and corporate leadership nor the American public seems to be aware of the struggle, much less girded for battle.

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The conflict will largely be fought over energy, materials and natural resources. As global supplies of fossil fuels grow increasingly scarce as well as environmentally more dangerous--"peak oil has arrived," Leeb writes, "and peak coal isn't far behind" --the world will perforce turn to an array of alternative energy sources and conservation measures. But even as we begin to build and operate solar panels, wind turbines, battery-driven electric cars and even energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs, the Chinese are beating us to the punch.

The Chinese expect to meet 15-20 percent of all their energy needs with alternative sources by 2020. At the same time, they are stockpiling a stunning array of important metals, minerals and rare earth elements (REEs). China's leaders, writes Leeb, are cleverly using the environment as a cover for their actions, hewing to a strategy ordained 26 centuries ago by Sun Tzu, the legendary general, philosopher and author of The Art of War: "The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead; the good general cultivates his resources."

Written with colleague Gregory Dorsey and impressively researched, Leeb--whose credentials include a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a Master's degree in Mathematics and a Doctorate in Psychology, authorship of seven books and manager of a New York investment fund--shows how systematically the Chinese have cached copper, silver, lithium and even iron and steel. They have moved aggressively into African countries, Afghanistan and elsewhere in a "global land grab." And they are hoarding their own rare earth elements.

Consider the case of copper. The scarcest of major metals, copper is a vital component of windmills, high-voltage cables, home construction and hybrid cars. Along with building up its inventory of...