How powerful is China? Is China powerful enough to change the world? This book distinguishes between China's obviously growing economic, political and military resources, and how they are translated into actual influence over other states' choices and policies. It investigates China's influence on the small and weak developing countries in East and South Asia, where China ought to have the biggest influence. It shows that China tends to try togain the support of these countries without forcing them to change their preferences or to act against their own interests, but how much it succeeds is determined more by how these target countries' policy-makers reactand by their domestic political considerations, than by how skilful Chinese politicians or investors are. China's influence even over these weakest states is not easily achieved, suggesting that China has more difficulty exercising its newfound power in the world than we assume.

Rising China has been reshaping world order for the last two decades, but this volume argues that we cannot accurately understand rising China's global impacts without first investigating whether and how its growing power resources are translated into actual influence over other states' choices and policies. Concentrating on the developing countries in East and South Asia, where the power asymmetry is greatest and China ought to have the biggest influence, the volume investigates China's influence in bilateral relationships, and on key political actors from these countries within key issue areas and international institutions. Using an influence framework, the volume demonstrates how China tends to try to gain the support of smaller and weaker countries without forcing them to change their preferences or to act against their own interests. China does purposefully coerce, induce, or persuade others to behave in certain ways, but whether and the extent to which it succeeds is determined as much by the reactions, political context and decision-making processes of the target states, as it is by how skilfully Chinese actors deploy these tools. The contributors detail how China's influence even over these weaker states does not result from easy applications of power; rather it tends to be mediated through the competing interests of target state actors, the imperatives of other existing security and economic relationships, and more complex strategic thinking than we might expect. The book's findings carry lessons for conceptual refinement, as well as policy implications for those coping with China's reshaping of international order.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. China's resurgence has spawned anxieties about an impending revision of the Liberal International Order. Drawing on case studies of Chinese investments across Europe, the contributors to this volume investigate the ways in which China translates its growing resources into effective influence, with varying degrees of success. They find that influence is most effectively achieved by harnessing the agency of states and societies in Europe towards China's preferences. Fragmented and messy rather than unified and coherent, these preferences comprise an amalgam of domestic, regional, and international considerations rather than aimed at revising world order. Nevertheless, as the contributors to this volume demonstrate, the interaction of European agency and Chinese preferences could have a variety of unintended consequences that range from straining the Liberal International Order to strengthening it. Against narratives that foreground inevitable conflict or assured cooperation, Rising Power, Limited Influence innovates a dynamic framework to understand the granular ways in which states and societies in Europe interact with state and society in China to (re-)shape the Liberal International Order. Its contribution is three-fold. Conceptually, it offers a relational definition of power that pinpoints attention to the ways in which China translates its growing investments in Europe towards influencing the preferences of host countries. Empirically, it outlines the different modalities through which China harnesses the agency of European countries towards its own (fragmented) preferences. Theoretically, the book introduces a dynamic framework to understand the interaction between state-society relations in China with state-society relations in European countries to comprehensively appreciate the extent, limits, and modalities of resurgent China's global influence.

What are Beijing’s objectives towards the developing world and how they have evolved and been pursued over time? Featuring contributions by recognized experts, China Steps Out analyzes and explains China’s strategies in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Africa, Middle East, and Latin America, and evaluates their effectiveness. This book explains how other countries perceive and respond to China’s growing engagement and influence. Each chapter is informed by the functionally organized academic literature and addresses a uniform set of questions about Beijing’s strategy. Using a regional approach, the authors are able to make comparisons among regions based on their economic, political, military, and social characteristics, and consider the unique features of Chinese engagement in each region and the developing world as a whole. China Steps Out will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese foreign policy, comparative political economy, and international relations.

This edition of the Southeast Asian Economic Outlook examines medium-term growth prospects, recent macroeconomic policy challenges, and structural challenges including human capital, infrastructure and SME development.

Executive Summary:Foreign policy makers in the United States should not be misled by prevailing media and scholarly assessments that exaggerate China?s influence in Asia relative to that of the United States. In particular, it would be a mistake for the Bush administration to give in to recent congressional, media, and interest group pressures that employ overstated assessments of China?s increasing power in order to push for tough U.S. government policies to confront and compete with China. This study shows that overt U.S. competition with China for influence is unwelcome in Asia, counterproductive for U.S. interests in the region, and unwarranted given the limited challenge posed by China?s rise. Prevailing assessments and commentaries about China?s rise in Asia are unbalanced, emphasizing China?s strengths and the United States? weaknesses. With few exceptions, they give inadequate attention to Chinese weaknesses and U.S. strengths. This study demonstrates that China?s recent success in Asia rests heavily on a fairly narrow foundation?that is, generally adroit Chinese diplomacy and intra-Asian trade that is less significant than the reported figures of annual trade between China and its neighbors would suggest. China?s willingness and ability to lead in Asia is undermined notably by many domestic preoccupations, nationalistic ambitions at odds with Asian neighbors, and economic complications posed by China?s rise as many countries in Asia are left further behind.Moreover, Chinese leaders and officials continue to follow policies that do not require either China or its neighboring countries to make significant changes, sacrifices, or commitments for one another that they would not ordinarily make. Thus, China?s Asian approach focuses on ?easy? things?the ?low-hanging fruit??and avoids costly commitments or major risk. By contrast, U.S. leadership in Asia, though challenged by unpopular policies in Southwest Asia and Korea, along with insufficient attention in dealing with Asian governments, remains strong in undertaking responsibilities and providing needed security and economic benefits to Asian states. The United States continues to show influence in Asia in concrete ways, notably by influencing Asian governments to do things they would not be inclined to do.Predictions of an emerging order in Asia led by a rising China that will marginalize the United States illustrate how far many of the predominate, unbalanced media and scholarly assessments have gone. They reflect a poor understanding of the ambitions of Asian governments, the resilience of U.S. power and leadership, and the actual status of China?s influence relative to that of the United States in Asian states around China?s periphery. To some extent, a rising China that generally accommodates its neighbors benefits from the fluid post-Cold War Asian order, as various Asian governments seek to broaden international options with various powers in a continuing round of hedging and maneuvering for advantage. But as China rises in influence in Asia, this study shows that these same neighboring governments hedge and maneuver against possible Chinese dominance. In this process, they quietly seek closer ties with one another and particularly with the region?s dominant power, the United States. America?s advantages in this situation are strong. The United States has a proven record of being able and willing to commit significant resources and prestige to protect allies and friends. The United States is very powerful?a superpower?but it is far away from Asia and has none of the territorial and few of the other ambitions that characterize Asian powers. Thus it is less distrusted by Asian governments in comparison with how these governments view one another, including China. As a result, most Asian governments?including China and all the major powers in Asia?give higher priority to relations with the United States than to relations with any power in Asia.In addition to being Asia?s economic partner of choice and acknowledged security guarantor, the United States has a leadership position in Asia that rests on a determined U.S. administration prepared to confront adversaries and opponents. This position gives pause to Asian governments seeking to challenge or displace the United States. The analysis in this monograph demonstrates that even hard-line Chinese critics of U.S. ?hegemony? in Asian and world affairs have been compelled in recent years to adopt alow posture in dealings with the United States, choosing to wait as China builds comprehensive national power over the coming decades.Chinese leaders are often frustrated by U.S. policies and power, and desirous over the long term to see their periphery free of constricting U.S. great power involvement. However, they show little sign of deviating from efforts to expand influence in selected ways that tend to avoid directly challenging the United States. Thus, for the most part, China?s rise in Asia does not come at the expense of U.S. interests and is not a part of a zerosum game resulting in the automatic decline of U.S. influence.To enhance its position in Asia, Washington should focus on repairing negative features of recent U.S. policy in Asia related to the fallout of its actions in Iraq, the Middle East, and Korea; U.S. unilateralism in international politics; and inattentiveness to the concerns of Asian governments over economic development, nation building, and multilateral cooperation. This recommendation requires adjustments, not a wholesale revamping of U.S. policies. Backed by continued, careful management of U.S. security commitments and economic relations with regional governments, they will enhance the leading role of the United States in Asian affairs. The prevailing tendency of Asian governments to hedge in the post- Cold War environment seems likely to continue to pose challenges for U.S. management of alliance and other relations with Asian governments seeking more independence and freedom of action, inclining some to seek closer ties with China, among others. Policymakers in the United States should not overreact to such maneuvers, recognizing that such hedging continues to provide a prominent role for the United States as the region?s well-recognized security stabilizer and economic partner of choice. In particular, Chinese government leaders found that their overt efforts in the late 1990s to compel Asian governments to choose between a rising China and the United States failed in the face of Asian governments? long unwillingness to do so. The government should learn from this experience in seeking to advance its leadership in Asia without the overt competition with China that would try to force Asian governments to make such a choice, probably with negative implications for U.S. leadership in Asia.

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