china IR rev final sept 2023

Julia Lovell The Great Wall. China against the world 1000 BC-AD2000,
Atlantic Books, 2007.
Julia Lovell turns the wall into a moving metaphorical target to trace China’s oscillation between openness and
enclosure over 3000 years. Her sweep and style propel the story rapidly, managing to be both erudite and racy
simultaneously.
Bobo Lo Axis of Convenience. Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics,
Brookings Press, 2008.
This book analyzes the Russia-China Relationship and the interests drivin000g Russian and Chinese policy. Lo argues
that the dynamic between these two emerging powers is a strategic convenience rather than a strategic partnership. It is
shaped not by a shared world vision but by expediency, pragmatism, and cold-eyed perceptions of national interests. A
good deal of continuity-in-action is discernable: Energy, Arms, Trade. China doesn’t want to put its eggs into one
basket. On this basis, Axis of Convenience evaluates the state and current prospects of the Sino-Russian relationship
against the backdrop of a disordered global environment. The book is built around the following chapters: 1.
Cooperation, Ambiguity, and Tension, 2. The Burden of History, 3. Strategic Partnership - Image and Reality, 4. The
Yellow Peril – Engagement in Russian Far East, 5. Peaceful Rise and the Shifting Sino-Russian Balance, 6. Cooperation
and Competition in Central Asia 7. East Asia – Arena of the Great Powers 8. Geopolitics of Energy 9. The Grand
Chessboard Revisited – Russia, China, and the United States 10. Conclusion – From Strategic Partnership to Strategic
Tension. Contrary to the perception of some Western observers, China and Russia are not ganging up on the United
States, even though a recentering in the world economy is taking place due to China’s ascent, whether by design or
through trade and investment flows. Bobo Lo considers five future scenarios: Strategic convergence, political-military
alliance, the end of history, confrontation, and strategic tension (p.183). This is more than a decade-old book and is still
a worthwhile read. Philip Snow’s China and Russia provides a historical perspective on shifting balances and
alignments.
Robert S. Ross & Zhu Feng China’s Ascent. Power, Security and the future
of international politics, Cornell, 2008.
China’s importance on the world stage usually focuses on a single dimension of China’s increasing power rather than
on the multiple sources of China’s rise, including its economic might and the continuing modernization of its military.
This book results from a collaboration of scholars from the United States and China. They ask: how do Chinese policymakers
evaluate the current international order, and what are the regional and global implications of that worldview?
The authors also address the impact of China’s increasing power on Chinese policy-making and the foreign policies of
Korea, Japan, and the United States. The analyses are set within the overall framework of power transition theory with
essential contributions by Jack Levy, Zhu Feng, and Avery Goldstein. The book is divided into six parts: Structure,
Power Transitions and the Rise of China, International Institutions and the Rise of China, Chinese Policy-Making and
the Rise of China, and Responding to the Rise of China and a Conclusion. This adds up to twelve chapters. This book
has been influential and is well worth the expense. One chapter predicts trouble with the regional power transition in
Europe, another by Tang Shiping, the move from offensive and defensive realism, and a third by Jack Levy on the links
between regional and global power transitions.
Cheng Li China’s changing political landscape. Prospects for Democracy,
Brookings, 2008.
This book adopts a pluralistic theoretical perspective to analyze domestic politics, interest groups, social issues, and
civil-military relations in China, i.e., state-society concerns. This adds fresh air compared to the books on China’s
economic rise and the relations between China’s foreign policy and the US and EU.
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