story identification - Looking for the name of this book. China rules the world when aliens make contact, they want to speak to the US president.

What I can remember about this book I read in the late 80's China rules the world when Aliens make contact and demand to speak with the US president or they will destroy earth. The Chinese get a farm worker to pose as the US president but their charade is discovered and leads to the Aliens helping to re-establish the United States.

Anyone know the name of this book?

Answer

I believe you are referring to "Black Star Rising" by Frederik Pohl.

When a mysterious alien spacecraft approaches the Earth and demands to speak with the President of the United States, then destroys a large Pacific island to demonstrate its strength and its seriousness, you'd expect the President to talk. Problem is, in the late twenty-first century, there is no President--not even a United States. China rules the Americas, and to most people "US" and "USSR" are just quaint abbreviations in historical dictionaries. But the aliens prove unreasonable about accepting substitutes. So one Anglo rice-cultivator from the Heavenly Grain Collective farm near Biloxi, Mississippi is forced to begin an adventure that will take him from peasant to President, from Pettyman to Spaceman.

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