ABSTRACT
It was a fitting coincidence that as this manuscript was being completed in September 2006, opinions polls carried out by Pew Research Center showed ‘China’s neighbors worry far more about the country’s military resurgence than about its massive economic surge, international polling suggests’ (PGAP 2006). China’s presence is such in this ‘power shift . . . China’s neighbours are increasingly looking to Beijing’ (Shambaugh 2005: 23). As such, China’s march to Great Power status, and perhaps pre-eminence, can now be followed through considering China’s relations with its immediate neighbours, Russia, Japan and India, as well as its relationship with the leading state in the international system – the USA.
