ABSTRACT
Spectacular economic growth of China during the past fifteen years resulted in a rush of books centered on the theme of rising China. Among literature on international relations and foreign policy, there have been two groups of books. Books in the first group have examined China’s bilateral relations with its neighbors and the United States. The key debate within this group has been whether the rising China will be a peaceful and cooperative international actor or an aggressive challenger to the existing international order.1 The traditional geopolitical thinking has been dominant within this group. Robert G. Sutter, a China expert, looks at drivers of China’s foreign policy mainly from domestic perspectives and then moves on to examine China’s bilateral relations with major powers (United States, Japan, Russia) and others (Taiwan, Korean Peninsula, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia).2 Analysis of the bilateral relations in this book is largely state-centric. David Shambaugh’s edited book has collected essays by many China experts and is a little more open to discussions of non-state actors than Sutter’s, but such discussions are mostly limited to business relations in the region.3
