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David Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power (New York: OUP, 2013), pp. 409 + xvi, US$29.95, ISBN 978-0199361038.

This is a big picture book by a major scholar, the product of five years of research, interviews and writing effort, reflecting the extraordinary access that the author has enjoyed in China, and around the world, as an academic steeped in his specialised knowledge of a country that fascinates the world. The book’s key message is captured in the subtitle; Shambaugh elaborates: ‘The elements of China’s global power are surprisingly weak and uneven’ (p. x). The book is not so much about China’s rise as its ‘spread’, viewed in terms of its global footprint.

The structure is straightforward. After a preliminary look at China’s global impact, the author examines in turn its global identities, and then goes on to look at China’s diplomatic presence across the world on issues ranging from global governance, to economic, cultural and security domains, before his concluding chapter: ‘Coping with a Globalized China’. The scholarship marshaled can be measured from the fact that one chapter is supported with 192 endnotes; the range of personalities interviewed is also impressive, and unusually, most are named; the author explains that this should be a new norm in writing about a country that is a global power. Given that China has tradition-ally ‘managed’ its relations with foreign scholars by linking their China access with its evaluation of the sympathy shown in their writing, it would be interesting to see if this becomes a new trend. An attractive feature of the book is the wealth of data it offers on subjects that have not received attention, or have been bereft of hard information, as for example the US$137 million expenditure in 2010 for some 400-odd Confucius centres run by Hanban of the Education Ministry, or that of the 1.39 million Chinese students that went to study abroad between 1978 and 2008, only about 14 per cent returned.

A novel feature in Chapter 2 is a typology that identifies different clusters among Chinese scholars that analyse international affairs and China’s role in the world; Shambaugh gives us a spectrum along which opinion is spread, ranging from ‘nativist’, through shades of realism, to those that prefer to work with major powers (the US, Russia and Europe), all the way to an ‘Asia first’ school, and finally to those that prefer the Global South, mul-tilateralism and globalism (pp. 26–44). Shambaugh emphasises that these groups tend to

CHINA REPORT 51 : 1 (2015): 76–86Sage Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DCDOI: 10.1177/0009445514560108

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merge into one another, producing an international identity that is ‘contentious and under debate, and is fluid…’. For him the centre of gravity is ‘anchored on the Realists, with a strong pull from the Nativists, and weaker influence from the Major Powers and Global South schools’ (p. 43). How real are these distinctions? Is there an undercurrent, a ‘Party line’, or is there genuine divergence of view behind this, representing, for example, the principal power centres of the country? This also begs a question as to the authenticity of such manifestations of Chinese pluralism. Given both the country’s opacity and authori-tarianism, it seems difficult to get a clear picture of the reality. Shambaugh does not go into this. Professor Kanti Bajpai has worked at a similar typology for Indian international affairs analysts, though this seems to be still a work-in-progress.

Chinese diplomacy is analysed in Chapter 3, which is for me the core of the book. This carries forward the original work of Doak Barnett that was published in 1985 (The Making of China’s Foreign Policy), and David Lampton followed up on that with his edited classic The Making of China’s Foreign & Security Policy in the Era of Economic Reforms, 2001. The range of new information as well as insights that Shambaugh offers is impressive. He notes the staging of encounters between Chinese leaders and visiting foreign dignitaries, which embodies elements of ancient court rituals, carried out in a modern context. No capital receives more foreign heads of state and government than Beijing. The CCP’s International Affairs Department which used to be the agency for contact with fellow-communist par-ties, now secularly maintains exchange relationships with 400 political parties around the world, in 140 foreign states. Such outreach to foreign non-state actors is unmatched.

Shambaugh gives the most comprehensive account available of the top levels of the foreign policy decision process, and the manner of operation of the ‘Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group’ and the ‘National Security Leading Small Group’, the two vital subsidiaries of the Politburo, and the Foreign Affairs Office of the Central Committee that serves them. He sketches the role played by the Foreign Ministry, whose author-ity is ‘diminished and diluted…It is, however, important not to overstate the MFA’s relatively declining role’ (p. 66). We should note here the decision of the third plenum of the Central Committee, held in November 2013, to set up a new ‘state security committee’ reportedly resembling a national security council; attempts in the late 1990s to create such a council had been given up. Clearly, the intent is to coordinate actions of the security agencies, and to tighten Party oversight.

Chapter 6 looks at China’s cultural presence in the world, which merits special attention. An Ernst & Young survey of soft power attributes of some 20 emerging states published in 2012 ranks China as the country with the strongest power of attrac-tion, but a sharp contrast to this is provided in one of the epigrams of this chapter, an assertion by Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew to the author that ‘China’s political system is not attractive…They have little soft power.’

Shambaugh basically supports this latter perspective, noting that despite spending between US$ 7 to US$ 10 billion in projecting its culture, it has a ‘mixed-to-poor image in public opinion polls’, and perceives itself to be under cultural assault from abroad. An Indian scholar attending an academic conference in China recently was asked why India did

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not feel threatened by foreign cultural influences, as is the case with China. In net terms, this is a surprising situation for China, considering the huge investments into, and the visible success, of the 2008 Olympics and the 2010 World Expo. Shambaugh argues that for all its effort, China has ‘very little influence on global cultural trends’ (p. 207). But that begs the question: does it seek to influence world culture, or does it invest to enhance its attractiveness and use culture as a magnet that counters, at least in part, a negative political image? The fact that China gets some 60 million tourists per year, including a vast range of businessmen, and international universities that throng to collaborate with its academia, suggests that this works to a considerable extent, the negatives notwithstanding.

The penultimate chapter looks at China’s global security presence, to suggest that while its power projection capability is rising, and it will be more involved with global security at the diplomatic level and on low-cost nontraditional security issues, ‘it will remain internally conflicted about the wisdom of deeper involvement in global govern-ance and expanding its global security and military footprint’ (p. 273). Against that we see, for instance, a Chinese push towards the Indian Ocean, along a Karakoram pass–Gwadar axis through Pakistan and another set of moves along the Yunnan–Irrawaddy corridor through Myanmar; both these are economic-energy access routes for the present, but one may wonder if this footprint will also gain a military character.

Shambaugh’s conclusion is that China pursues a ‘limited integration’ with the world, as it is ‘risk-averse and narrowly self-centered’. What the world should be concerned with is a China that is ‘…an insecure, confused, frustrated, angry, dissatisfied, selfish, truculent, and lonely power. More than anything else, China wants to be prosperous, secure, respected and left alone in its geo-cultural orbit. This has been the core national mission since the 1870s’ (p. 317). This begs the question: if the world is so concerned with the rise of China even at a time when Beijing does not project itself politically on a world canvas, what might be the reaction as and when it drops its reserve and engages globally on a wide canvas? Implicit in Shambaugh’s thesis is the notion that for countries that have a sizable engagement with China, the management of that relationship, at bilateral, regional and global levels, will be surely the most complex challenge they may face for many years to come.

ReFeReNCeS

Barnett, Doak A. (1985). The Making of China’s Foreign Policy. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.Lampton, David M. (2001). The Making of China’s Foreign & Security Policy in the Era of Economic Reforms.

Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Kishan S. RanaFormer diplomat, author, teacher, Honorary Fellow

Institute of Chinese StudiesDelhi

E-mail: kishanrana@gmail.com

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Kai Chen, Comparative Study of Child Soldiering on Myanmar-China Border: Evolutions, Challenges and Countermeasures (Singapore: Springer, 2014), pp. 97, 49.99, ISBN: 978-981-4560-01-6.

DOI: 10.1177/0009445514560110

The book under review focuses on the ‘evolution, challenges and countermeasures’ of child soldiering on the Myanmar–China border and is a valuable contribution to the limited research on this issue. The book concentrates on the two pockets of Southeast Asia’s most conflict-ridden country, namely, the Kachin and Shan states of Myanmar, and covers an extensive temporal sweep from 1947 till the present day focusing specifically on the past two decades. The research focuses on the child soldiers in the three biggest armed forces and groups on the Myanmar–China border, namely, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Tatmadaw Kyi or the Myanmar Army.

Chen has adopted a context-sensitive approach along with an eclectic mix of comparative analysis, case analysis and scenario analysis, and has tried to analyse child soldiering by comparing across time, between different areas, between child soldiers besides learning from other countries in order to apply those lessons in managing child soldiering on the Myanmar–China border. Some other value additions from this book are in terms of addressing the structural factors of child soldiering in this sensitive border region which include decentralisation of security, inadequate manpower resources, insufficient legal enforcement and displacement of children, stateless children and chronic poverty. Further, the book also explores the relationships between child soldiers and their recruiters through scenario analysis—a method of multiple projections by considering alternative possible outcomes of the future. Also the notion of ‘limited statehood’ (like Anand Yang’s ‘limited Raj’)1 is an interesting take on studies related to child soldiering where governments abrogate their responsibilities and leave the state to be run by ‘parapolitical systems’ comprising of gangs of armed militias, ethnic warring groups and private armies.

Chen also enlightens us about the three new features of child soldiering around the globe. According to him, the main actors recruiting children have shifted from state armed forces to non-state armed groups and that children have become more vulnerable in armed conflicts due to the blurring of difference between civilians and combatants. Lastly, more and more children are being involved in low-intensity armed conflicts.

Pointing to the grave consequences of the phenomenon of child soldiering which in the twentieth century has turned into a ‘war strategy’ (p. 3), the author suggests that there is no optimal solution for reducing it since all the stakeholders face differ-ent critical challenges and most conventional solutions are not suitable for the border regions. He, however, posits the second-best optimal solution for the governance of child soldiering, namely, transnational ‘public–private partnership’ (PPP).

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The author lays the ground by first defining a child soldier in this book as ‘any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including, but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighter, cooks, porters, messengers and spies, or for sexual pur-poses’ (p. 1). Chen identifies child soldiers as the most vulnerable of ‘non-citizens’ or ‘stateless’ as he puts it and who on the Myanmar–China border belong to an admixture of cross-border ethnic groups including HIV/AIDS orphans and displaced children (p. 6).

According to the author, child soldiering in Myanmar is a by-product of two forms of conflicts, namely, ‘ideological confrontation’ and ‘constitutional crisis’, since its independence in 1948 which relate to the nature of state and the manner in which it was to be governed (p. 19). Chen wears the historian’s cap and, as is the conventional practice of engaging with the history of Myanmar, divides it into three historical land-marks beginning with Myanmar’s independence in 1948 followed by General Ne Win’s coup in 1962 and finally the advent of a new military regime in 1988.

Chen opines that the history of child soldiering in Myanmar is a result of the long-lasting ethnic conflicts starting with the ‘inception’ of armed conflicts from 1947 to 1962, followed by the ‘intensified stage’ from 1962 to 1988 and finally the ‘transitional period’ from 1988 to the present times. The first stage gave the 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma based on the Panglong Agreement which guaranteed the ‘right of secession’ from the Union, after 10 years of independence, to all ethnic nationali-ties that formed member states of the Union. However, the Karen State was left to hang in balance and the Chin people received only a special division, whereas no such independence or ethno-political recognition was granted to the Kokang, Mon, Pao, Palaung, Rakhine and Wa people.

The ‘intensified stage’ from 1962 to 1988 saw the new Ne Win government launching a military campaign directed by the ‘four-cut strategy’—cutting food supply, financial links between villagers and insurgents, intelligence sources of insurgents and promoting the people fighting the insurgents (p. 20). Finally the ‘transitional period’ from 1988 to the present times witnessed the ‘three pronged strategy’ (p. 21) towards the ethnic-based militias which till today counter-balances its acts and looks after general welfare of the people. Chen informs us that one of the major achievements of the ‘three pronged strategy’ has been the signing of ceasefire agreements between most of the ethnic-based militias and the Myanmar government.

Child soldiering is an anti-thesis to the zeitgeist of modernity yet an everyday reality in the war zones of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Chhattisgarh in India and Sri Lanka that are fraught with intrastate ethnic conflicts (and of late religious wars such as those led by Iraq–Syria’s Islamic State). According to Chen, ‘child soldiers serve in 40% of the world’s armed forces, rebel groups, and terrorist organizations and fight in almost 75% of the world’s armed conflicts’ (p. 3). Speaking in the context of Myanmar, Chen informs us that the Tatmadaw Kyi has

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70,000 or more soldiers, and the UWSA has the most number of child soldiers among the ethnic-based militias with possibly as many as 2000 soldiers under 18 years and 600–800 who are below 15 (p. 22).

Child soldiering not only retards development and is a mass violation of human rights but has negative consequences for those involved in militarising and de-humanising society. According to Chen, child soldiers round up villagers for forced labour, and carry out suicide missions and ‘human wave’ attacks most of the times under the influence of narcotics or alcohol. In some cases, child soldiers display terrifying audacity when infused with religious or political indoctrination. In another chapter, Chen says that the structural factors for the involvement of child soldiers in Myanmar is based on three perspectives, namely, the victim–coercer relationship which is based on fear whereby the Tatmadaw Kyi impose recruit quotas that require villagers to give their son(s) as ‘tribute’ to ‘multiple masters’ in the war zones (p. 54). Second, the patron–client relationship (saya-tapyi) (p. 55) whereby children join armed militias either to survive or to satisfy their desire for military prestige or else gain privileges in terms of health care and educational system, housing and banking facilities that are run by the Tatmadaw themselves. Finally, comradeship that includes taking revenge for the family member in which case the commanders become the ‘surrogate family’ and turn into caretaker or a parent in order to curb desertion. For most child soldiers, entering the ranks of a soldier is symbolic of attaining manhood and gives them a sense of identity.

The psychological scars of an ethnic conflict which deploys child soldiers leaves behind colonies of injured, diseased, substance-addicted, maimed and orphaned or ‘stateless’ children who are an expendable asset and quite easily replaced (p. 28). Moreover, repeated exposure to highly traumatic events for many years lead to high rates of desertion, depression, emotional and behavioural problems like the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ where the child soldier tries to become the alter egos of their commanders and rationalise their violent behaviour or even attempt suicide. Here, I think the author would have done well to give a nuanced Marxist twist by relating these cases of suicide with estrangement and alienation.

Chen introduces a new approach for the governance of child soldiering as the second-best optimal solution, namely, transnational ‘public–private partnership’ (PPP) which according to him is a ‘continuous and relatively institutionalized boundary interaction between public and private actors that formally strive for the provision of collective goods’ (p. 12). Moreover, he suggests that PPP can be further braced up with a strong monitoring system and complaint regime, Opium Substitution Programme on the Myanmar–China border (p. 77), partnership in public health and humanitarian assistance and private mediation in peace talks. He suggests some quick steps that can mitigate instances of child soldiering like enforcing discipline against personnel/groups responsible for child soldiering, supporting legislation for promoting an international ban on both state and non-state actors recruiting children below 18 years, building

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bridges of mutual trust through communication and cooperation with the ethnic-based militias, extending flexibilities in terms of adjustment of the established standards and norms, and demobilising child soldiers by voluntary discharging of any soldier who was recruited as a minor.

The author also argues for the improvement of protective mechanisms that would include developing alternative methodologies by ILO to identify orphans and displaced children, and the establishment of a liaison office on the China side along the Myanmar–China border. Apart from this, he suggests improvement in birth registration mechanisms including free birth registration and alternative mechanisms for age verification by both China and Myanmar. The author also vouches for monastery-based protective mechanisms developed and managed by Buddhist communities and suggests an urgent need for information-sharing and intelligence-gathering to raise international awareness by developing a framework between Myanmar and other neighbouring countries and providing the necessary incentives to the private sector to work/invest in conflict zones that also happen to possess natural and mineral resources. Chen also suggests some kind of apprentice-ship like resurrecting damaged community infrastructure or locating landmines and so on for the former child soldiers.

The author, however, fails to explain the late clarion call given by the international community and forums like the UN Convention to the issue of child soldiers. He is also unable to provide an explanation for the overt opposition to the ‘straight-18’ definition of child soldiers by the United States and the United Kingdom which is a universal definition of childhood as beginning at birth and ending at age 18.

Despite the limitations faced by Chen both in terms of access to zones of conflict as well as a paucity of source material possibly due to its sensitive nature or else its presumed non-importance, the book raises several important questions and possibilities of further exploration and research. These concerns pertain to the possibility of Sino-US cooperation in governing child soldiering on the Myanmar–China border besides issues like girl soldiers and similarities and differences between girl soldiers and boy soldiers, the prospects and consequences of security privatisation in Myanmar, research on the medium- and long-term reintegration of former child soldiers on the Myanmar–China border. In addition, Chen also deals with the negative consequences and current situation of child soldiering on the Myanmar–China border as well as the question of evaluating the relationships between child soldiers and their recruiters.

The book is a brave effort and a timely eye-opener by Chen that engages with a sensitive issue and provides an overview of the potential security threat and chal-lenges posed by child soldiering and the measures that can be taken to tide over the impending crisis. Meanwhile, for a well-known publishing house, one expected, Springer to do a better job with its editorial responsibilities. The book is badly edited and grammatical mistakes and errors of syntax, punctuation marks and sentence framing abound.

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ReFeReNCe

Yang, Anand A. 1989. The Limited Raj: Agrarian Relations in Colonial India, Saran District, 1793–1920. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Subir RanaVisiting Associate Fellow

Border Studies ProgrammeInstitute of Chinese Studies, Delhi

E-mail: 123.subir@gmail.com

Yan Xuetong, Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, edited by Daniel A. Bell and Sun Zhe, translated by Edmund Ryden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), pp. xii + 300, $37.50, ISBN: 9780691148267.

DOI: 10.1177/0009445514560109

Of late, there has been an increasing interest among international relations scholars in Chinese philosophy and thought mainly because China’s leaders and scholars have been trying to promote its view of the world based on their traditional thinking; this reexamination of ancient Chinese thought is, in fact, a vital current of the twentieth-century Chinese approach to power. The volume focuses on two tasks. First, to bring to light the interstate philosophy of China, before its unification under the Qin Empire in 221 BCE and second, to provide a detailed explanation of how and why interstate philosophy of the pre-Qin period can help in enriching international relations theories at present dominated by the West.

The concept of building a Chinese school of international relations (IR) theory is not new in China. During the past 30 years, Chinese scholars have developed a variety of views about the establishment of Chinese school of IR theory. Nonetheless, these attempts have not moved beyond introducing title of ‘Chinese IR theory’ to the world. Yan’s quest as to why there is no Chinese school of IR theory led him to dig into the philosophy of ancient Chinese thinkers, to see if a conceptual framework for an IR theory could be found. Yan’s path-breaking research sheds light on ancient Chinese philosophers who wrote on governance and interstate relations before the unification of China. He finds the philosophy of pre-Qin period relevant mainly because of its similarities with the contemporary period. Chinese interstate politics of that period known as ‘Spring and Autumn’ and ‘Warring States period’ and con-temporary international politics are both anarchical in nature with each state pos-sessing an independent military force and no power at the level of the system having a monopoly on military force (p. 203).

This book which is a part of Yan Xuetong’s ongoing research project at Tsinghua University not only intends to provide a Chinese school of IR theory based on

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pre-Qin philosophy but also tries to legitimise China’s rise by making a differentiation between ‘hegemony’ and ‘humane authority’. The first part of the book consists of three essays, two by Yan himself, and one coauthored with Huang Yuxing, his colleague from Tsinghua. In this section, Yan discusses the philosophy of seven thinkers from the eighth to the third centuries BCE in relation to interstate politics. These are Guanzi, Laozi, Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, Xunzi and Hanfeizi. Yan has explored their views on interstate order, interstate leadership and views on the shift of hegemonic power. Even though research has been done earlier on pre-Qin thought by eminent Chinese scholars like Liang Qichao, what makes Yan’s research more interesting is his use of modern epistemology to elucidate the philosophy of pre-Qin scholars. Yan has employed the epistemological basis of system, state and individual level analysis to diversify the perspective of pre-Qin philosophers on interstate relations. He has categorised the pre-Qin philosophers into two types—conceptual determinist and material determinist. The conceptual determin-ist holds that ideas and norms of rulers and other core members such as chief ministers determine the nature of state, their strength and whether there will be chaos or stability in the international order, while the material determinist believes it is material conditions that determine the outcome of interstate competition or conflict.

However, pre-Qin philosophers are always tied with one common element of morality in their sphere of analysis whether covering political leadership or shift of hegemonic power. Morality is also the dividing line between hegemony and humane authority. For example, Xunzi said that both hegemon and humane authority need the twin forces of power and morality but humane authority relies more on morality and hegemonic authority more on power (p. 47).

As a realist, Yan does not underplay the importance of power in international rela-tions; indeed, he thinks that present IR theory lacks the distinction between power and authority. For him, power is the strength of enforcement and is built on force, while authority is the strength of legitimacy and is built on trust (p. 64). Yan perceives that existing international theories have overemphasised the role of power, particularly economic power as a determining factor in relationship between two nations. In this regard, Yan highlights the similarity between former CIA chief analyst Ray S. Cline’s formulation of comprehensive national power and Xunzi’s formulation of national power, where both of them have given an equal share to soft power along with hard power in their equation of national power. Yan notes that the use of morality as a form of soft power can make a huge difference in the relation between the nations. Yan brings the example of American unilateralism during regime of George W. Bush to explain the difference between hegemony and humane authority. Yan also emphasises that the goal of China’s strategy should not only be to reduce its power gap with the US but also to establish a better model for the international system. If China only revises the US-led model of the international system, China can never attain humane authority. Yan warns the Chinese government that acquiring more economic power does not necessarily mean power transition in international society and nor will it help in shaping international norms. Thus, in the third chapter of the book, Yan

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along with his colleague Huang provide a comparison of pre-Qin understanding of hegemony and contemporary Western hegemony theory. Here, the authors illustrate the point that failing to respect interstate norms can have a negative influence on a state’s hegemonic status. An in-depth analysis of pre-Qin thought obliges Yan to suggest that China’s aspiration to lead the world depends on a universal acceptance of its theory of diplomacy for a ‘harmonious world’ accompanied by international norms. However, emphasising the importance of morality in international norms, Yan maintains that if a hegemonic power acquires a certain level of morality it is possible for the hegemon to govern the world.

The next section of the book contains three essays by commentators which gen-erate a scholarly debate on the pre-Qin thought. Yang Qiangru, even though she accepts the importance of pre-Qin philosophy in present-day international relations, objects to the method used by Yan to narrate the philosophy of pre-Qin masters. Yang is concerned about the fact that Yan’s zeal for creating a new theory might distort the original philosophy of pre-Qin thinkers. Yang is also skeptical about the use of the word ‘rise’ to explicate China’s foreign policy and asks even whether the goal of China’s foreign policy should be to rise in power and ‘lead the world’ (p. 153). Xu Jin, another author in the volume, argues that rather than overemphasising Xunzi’s proposition of morality of the ruler, it would be better to look at Mencius’ views on how to implement humane authority. Commenting on the pre-Qin understanding of hegemony, Wang Rihua points out that theory of hegemony does not exclude the necessity of the material power; political philosophy in ancient China held that power was constituted by both its material aspect as well as its moral aspect in the form of influence (p. 186). Wang also notes that unlike the West, in ancient China’s politi-cal hegemony theory, hegemony is not situated at the pinnacle of the structure of international power. He argues that both humane authority and the hegemon uphold power, but it is the level of moral influence which makes humane authority superior to the hegemon. Like Yan, he also believes that if a hegemon attains a certain degree of morality it can also transform into humane authority.

The book also includes several appendices providing useful background to under-standing the pre-Qin era. Yan’s personal interview and his final essay on ‘why there is no Chinese School of international relations theory yet’ helps readers understand more clearly why Yan decided to write a book on ancient Chinese philosophy.

Although it is questionable how far the international community is ready to accept the validity of pre-Qin thought in contemporary IR, Yan makes an excellent effort to introduce ancient Chinese philosophy in the book. What makes the book more interesting is that while describing pre-Qin philosophy, Yan always provides examples from the contemporary scenario and not necessarily only from China. For example, he compares American presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush when talking about moral leadership.

However, Yan probably has taken a utopian and oversimplified approach in bringing pre-Qin thought into present-day IR. Drawing upon pre-Qin thought, he appears to

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believe that hierarchical norms help in maintaining a balance between a state’s power and its international responsibility, which in turn helps in reducing international con-flict and improving international cooperation. But, in the modern world where nations are constantly seeking equal status with others, Yan’s formulation for hierarchical norms seems impossible to attain. Despite Yan’s claim to be a hardnosed scientific realist, it seems his project is far removed from realism, per se. Daniel Bell, one of the editors of the volume, notes, ‘If American neoconservatives are liberals managed by reality, Chinese realists are idealists mugged by the surreal events of the Cultural Revolution’ (p. 1). Another problem with Yan’s project is that it is too ambitious and entangles too many issues such as political leadership, global governance, foreign policy and IR theory together. The book has provided many instances where existing IR theory can be enriched by pre-Qin philosophy. Pre-Qin thinkers talk about the role of concepts and ideas in IR which serves as a mirror for constructivism and international political psychology in the field of political policy. However, the book fails to generate a par-ticular theory of IR from ancient Chinese thought. A careful examination of the book also leads us to the conclusion that Yan by using the philosophy of pre-Qin period, is simply trying to justify the fact that China’s rise will be different from that of the US, as China is going to be a morally responsible power.

Nonetheless, the book sheds new light from the East in relation to Western-dominated IR theory. If the modern nation-state system can be drawn from the developments since Westphalia, and the English school of IR specifically has its roots in the history of decline of Europe, why cannot the history of the East also serve to formulate a new IR theory? Yan’s introduction to pre-Qin Chinese history has paved the way towards such a development. Of course, more research is needed to build a more complete Chinese theory of IR.

Jayshree BorahResearch Assistant

Institute of Chinese StudiesE-mail: jayshreebrh@gmail.com