Book Authored: Huiyun Feng, Kai He and Xiaojun Li.
Publication Place: London and New York:
Publisher details: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. xv, 128 pp.
China’s rise is inarguably one of the most defining aspects of the 21st century global politics. The country is currently world’s second largest economy, and the largest trade partner for over 120 countries. These numbers, combined with its technological milieu, cultural outreach and military developments have made China a major contender for position of global leadership. It is thus no surprise that China and its foreign policy have garnered attention in past few years; a need for systematic assessment of Beijing’s perspective is important to understand the implications of China rising. However, literature in Sinology available in English is dominated mostly by Western scholarship, which is mostly critical of Chinese policies and government. China’s International Relations perspective in particular has very few English language works in its name that proffer Chinese scholarship on subject matter. While there is no dearth of resources in Chinese language, it is not practicable for many to gain proficiency in, which makes English language texts on China like How China Sees the World: Insights from China’s International Relations Scholars a real boon.
The book is written by Chinese scholars to offer insight into Chinese scholarship which, as previously mentioned, is its main point of attraction. However, their methodology of displaying those opinions is based not on direct interviews or secondary research from Chinese scholars. This, they argue, is because of the Chinese government censorship, as the written word may not reflect its author’s true perception if the government stands upon their work like a sword of Damocles. They further argue that the authors, fearing governmental restrictions, may also self-censor, which renders their books and interviews meaningless as well. There is also a legitimate issue of research bias in sampling done by researchers, as there is a high chance that the choice of samples was actually not in control of the researcher attempting their subjective study.
Thus, the authors have taken a round-about approach of creating an analytical framework which synthesizes public opinion survey and textual analysis to derive Chinese IR scholars’ perceptions of international relations in 2010s. For their purpose, they conducted a series of surveys over a period of nearly four years, between 2014 and 2017, during the Tsinghua University’s CCPSIS conferences. The questionnaire for survey contained about 50 multiple-choice questions organized around Chinese perception of own power, foreign policy and foreign relations with major powers. The research is based on overall sample size of 1251 people, 97% of whom were Chinese. These opinions were then complemented and cross-referenced with textual analysis of 434 articles from five major IR journals in China, viz; Journal of Contemporary Asia-Pacific Studies (当代亚太), World Economics and Politics (世界经济与政治), Contemporary International Relations (现代国际关系), Foreign Affairs Review (外交评论), and China International Studies (国际问题研究). Bringing the total chapter count to five, their findings are divided into four different chapters, relating to China’s rise of power, US-China relations, Chinese foreign policy in global context, and Chinese scholarship’s view of the China rise (as essentially a conclusion).
In regards to the question of China rising, majority of the survey respondents believed that while China was indeed rising, it was not challenging the world order or undermining the US. The responses seem contradictory, but the authors point out that this just means that they did not believe in Chinese rise and the change in world order a ‘zero sum game’. This is reflected in scholarship writings, which assert that the current world order is a fast-changing system is composed of one ‘superpower’ (US) and many ‘major powers’ (including China). The scholars agree that while US is declining, it is going to retain its position of dominant power for a long while yet, and China’s burgeoning economy does not automatically earn it the place of the second strongest country in the world.
In terms of US-China relations, the respondents have a neutral view of the relationship between two countries, though the curve leans a little more towards positive relationship. The survey response varies over the years, largely on account of the leadership in US; the relationship was stable towards the end of Obama administration, turned positive in the first year of Trump, and then declined again as the Trump administration took to what is described as ‘China bashing’. This correlates to the scholarship view that the downgrade in relationship between two countries is due to trust deficit between their respective political elites, although the implication lies more heavily on US. Additionally, both respondents and scholarship believe that the issue of Taiwan and South China Sea are the biggest challenges for the two nations, but while respondents did recognize trade as a major potential dispute, the scholars had not. This, the authors argue, is because Chinese scholarship favours study of historical patterns and current domestic political cycles within the United States, and are inclined towards security issues, which may be why the scholarship could not predict 2018 Trade War.
The Chinese foreign policy and international relations, there is a strong inclination on part of both the respondents and the scholarship that Chinese foreign policy approach is satisfactory, and that China has grown assertive since 2008. They are also an agreement that Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Tao Guang Yang Hui’ (keeping a low profile) policy needs to be readjusted, but while the opinion was overwhelmingly higher among the survey respondents, there was a more even distribution in texts. The respondents are more willing for military alliances, while the scholarship shows more nuance in their approach. In terms of bilateral relationship, there are slight differences in opinions of the respondents and the texts with respect to some countries. For instance, while the respondents are neutral with some negatively leaning towards Sino-Japanese relationship, the scholarship is mostly pessimistic. However, the respondents and the scholarship is mostly in line with each other in matter of other important bilateral relationships, including Russia, India, ASEAN, Africa, Latin America and EU.
The overall perception that we gather from the book is that the Chinese scholarship believes that China rise is a continued process, though the country has not yet reached a level where it can veritably call itself a superpower or a dominant power instead of US. They also believe that China has no intention of challenging the world order, and that its rise does not contradict the US dominance. China, to the scholars, has no intention of challenging the system, and thus the issues and rivalries arising out of China – US relations have been borne out of US prerogative. Nonetheless, the authors do not expect the relationship to devolve into a military confrontation, and there is an expressed hope that the trade war will end, even if the sense of competition between the two countries does not.
The book offers a comprehensive analysis of the scholarship, while navigating the fact that many scholars are not able to express their complete opinion on their papers due to the Chinese administration. However, the respondents, a major metric for gauging the opinions on Chinese IR and foreign policy perspective, are not constituted only of Chinese IR scholars. The summary profile of the respondents suggests that they considered attendants of the CCPSIS conference, regardless of their profession or qualification. This included students, who are more likely to have an opinion informed by books which carry the censored opinions, and thus may skew the results of survey to be more in line with the textual analysis.
The nature of survey being a choice-based questionnaire also severely restricts the expression of scholars’ opinions. As mentioned in case of opinion on Deng Xiaoping’s Tao Guang Yang Hui’ approach, the both survey and text analysis results agreed that some adjustments were needed, but in case of survey, the degree of ‘reservation’ in change was not expressed, while it was in textual analysis. The authors could have chosen to offer the respondents a subjective question line to express what change they suggested in the policy, making the respondent answers more nuanced.
Another issue can be seen in context of the conclusions drawn out of deteriorating US-China relations. While the book does mention that the outlook in future years will be ‘gloomier’, their assumptions are still more on the optimistic side. The authors, based on the survey and scholarship, dismiss the possibility of military standoff, failing to account for Taiwan and South China Sea issue that had become avenues of military skirmishes even as the book was being published. Relating the ongoing realities of turbulent bilateral relations may have been a valuable addition.
Overall, the book does manage to give us an important insight in how Chinese scholars see China’s place in international relations. It also manages to reconcile the plethora of viewpoints that are given by a restricted scholarship and press, with the on-spot opinions of the scholarship that is not scrutinized or tampered with.
Reviewed By: Meghna Pradhan, Ph.D. scholar, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi; NASC scholar (2024 – 2025) at The Takshashila Institution; Research Assistant, MP-IDSA
This book review presents the author’s personal interpretation and critique. The opinions, analysis, and conclusions drawn herein are the reviewer’s own and do not reflect the viewpoints of MP-IDSA or NASC fellowship (The Takshashila Institution)
