ABSTRACT
China Rising has provided a substantial counterbalance to the realist mainstream position in debates within academia and politics. Its explanation of modern Asian history and the cultural particularities of Asian international relations has contributed significantly to the general understanding of Asian politics in the West. Through a convincing analysis of the East Asian context, David C. Kang highlights the stabilizing effect of China's rise and the cultural factors that induce Asian states to accommodate this development. Kang's work has provoked considerable reflection in the field about the need to consider new analytical frameworks to understand historical and contemporary developments in Asia, and account for the unique identities of each nation. His detailed consideration of Asian history, culture, and identity, which resists the intervention of Eurocentric assumptions, presents a potent challenge to the dominant discourse in American and European academia and politics that considers China's rise necessarily destabilizing and a threat to the West.
