The success of China’s post-1978 reforms has provided it with significant resources to reshape its external environment. This book shows how China has leveraged this power from a neorealist perspective, projecting military and economic power to advance Chinese interests.

This volume explains China’s foreign policy from the perspective of its historical recovery after 1949 and the country’s subsequent rise as a great power, including its transformation into a global power. It also illuminates how China has, in tandem with its rise, developed an increasing array of political, economic, ‘sharp power’ and military capabilities that is helping it to further its increasingly expansive foreign policy objectives. The volume examines two key questions: What have been the implications of China’s rise for its foreign policy? And how has an increasingly powerful and confident China used a range of foreign policy instruments to pursue its expanding national interests in Asia and beyond? The volume is divided into three parts, covering the conceptualization and drivers of China’s foreign policy, China’s relations with the world, and the instruments of China’s foreign policy, namely its economic power, military capabilities and its ‘sharp power’ manipulation of information and relationships. It will be of interest to academics, students and researchers interested in understanding China’s role in world politics.

Following the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Global Financial Crisis, China's foreign policy shifted to become more assertive, effecting a systematic deterioration in the US-China relationship. In 2017, the US' China policy shifted from that of 'engagement' to 'strategic competition' under Trump — a policy which has remained under the Biden administration.Indo-Pacific Security: US-China Rivalry and Regional States' Responses explores how states in the Indo-Pacific region have had to adjust to the reality and implications of this growing great power rivalry. In the process, this book fills a gap in the area studies, international relations, and security studies literature. It provides a compelling account of the trajectory of US-China relations while illuminating the varied responses of regional states: from Australia, India and Japan, to South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, and Pacific Island states.

In the third decade of the 21st century, Asia remains the global center of economics, politics and security. Asia is at the forefront of wealth creation, innovation, and sustainability. There is a growing demand for knowing more about Asia. This Major Reference Set (MRS) is designed to help general readers as well as specialists to have a good grasp of the latest developments in Asia in the key areas of geopolitics, geoeconomics, and sustainability.With 3 volumes, this MRS covers all major dimensions of Asia's political economy, regional security, and sustainable development. Volume 1 unpacks and examines geopolitics and foreign policy strategies of key Asian states in response to major security challenges associated with growing US-China rivalry.Volume 2 covers geoeconomics, entrepreneurship, regional integration, and development models. Trade, investment, innovation, and regional cooperation have been essential to Asia's continued success.Volume 3 offers a critical overview of environment, public health, and human security in Asia. Case studies are selected from countries that are at different stages of development and facing different environment and health challenges today.This interdisciplinary MRS is a fine example of international cooperation, with contributors who are all established scholars and experts in their fields of study hailing from different parts of Asia as well as North America and Europe. It is a must-have for anyone keen on understanding Asia's dynamic development and daunting challenges in the post-COVID world.

The success of China's post-1978 reforms has provided it with significant resources to reshape its external environment. This book shows how China has leveraged this power from a neorealist perspective, projecting military and economic power to advance Chinese interests.

Now in a fully updated edition, this cogent but comprehensive book examines the international relations of the People’s Republic of China since its founding in 1949. Noted scholar Robert G. Sutter provides a balanced assessment of the country’s recent successes and advances as well as the important legacies and constraints that hamper it, especially in nearby Asia—long the focus of China’s foreign policy attention. Sutter demonstrates how Beijing has carefully created an image of a China that follows consistent policies based on morally correct principles, but its record shows repeated episodes of sometime surprising change and frequent use of violence, intimidation, and coercion. China’s leaders, he argues, still fail to manage the desire for productive foreign relations with their aspirations to build Chinese security and sovereignty interests. Image-building efforts condition Chinese public and elite opinion to be extraordinarily sensitive, self-righteous, and often alarmist in dealing with the many disputes China has with its Asian neighbors and the United States. Advances that the PRC has made in other parts of the world focus mainly on commercial interests, limiting its actual impact on world affairs. Sutter shows readers how to use China’s rise in nearby Asia as a reliable barometer of how important and effective the country will actually become internationally.

Monique Taylor analyses the policy rationale and institutional underpinnings of China's state-led or neomercantilist oil strategy, and its development, set against the wider context of economic transformation as the country transitions from a centrally planned to market economy.

Bringing together leading scholars from Asia and the West, this book investigates how the dynamics of China’s rise in world politics contributes to theory-building in International Relations (IR). The book demonstrates how the complex and transformative nature of China’s advancement is also a point of departure for theoretical innovation and reflection in IR more broadly. In doing so, the volume builds a strong case for a genuinely global and post-Western IR. It contends that ‘non-Western’ countries should not only be considered potential sources of knowledge production, but also original and legitimate focuses of IR theorizing in their own right.

The Chinese government has frequently been criticized for propping up anti-democratic governments. This book investigates the rise of China as an emerging authoritarian power. By comparing China’s bilateral relations to three Asian developing countries – Burma, Cambodia and Mongolia – it examines how China targets specific groups of actors in autocracies versus non-autocracies. It illustrates how the Chinese non-interference policy translates into support for incumbent leaders in autocratic countries and how the Chinese government has thereby profited from exploiting secretive decision making in autocracies to realize its own external interests such as achieving access to natural resources. In a statistical analysis of the patterns of Chinese external cooperation and their impact on the survival of autocratic leaders, the book finds some evidence that China is more likely to target autocracies with economic cooperation. However, only some forms of bilateral interaction are found to increase the prospect of survival for autocratic leaders. This important contribution to the understanding of both external factors of authoritarian endurance and China’s foreign relations, a field of study still lacking systematic investigation, will be of great interest to students and researchers in Development Studies, Asian Studies, International Relations, and International Political Economy.

Prepared by the East Asian Institute, NUS, which promotes research on East Asian developments particularly the political, economic and social development of contemporary China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), this series of research reports is intended for policy makers and readers who want to keep abreast of the latest developments in China. This study suggests that China should accelerate economic growth of its backward interior regions by deepening market-oriented reforms on the one hand, and by strengthening fiscal transfers from richer to poorer regions on the other.