Provincializing Russia: recontextualizing postcolonial thought in the post-Soviet era

Reviewed by: Japan's Peace-building Diplomacy in Asia: Seeking a More Active Political Role Paul Midford (bio) Japan's Peace-building Diplomacy in Asia: Seeking a More Active Political Role. By Lam Peng Er. Routledge, New York, 2009. xi, 171 pages. 75.00. This is a must-read book for anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of Japan's foreign and security policies. It contains surprises even for experts well versed in Japanese foreign policy. I suspect many other specialists will at best be only dimly aware of Japan's activism in peace and human security promotion in Mindanao, Sri Lanka, and Aceh, or of Japan's continuing support for East Timor and Cambodia, before picking up Lam's book. This work could have at least two additional subtitles. One would be "The Fukuda Doctrine and Japan's Relationship with Southeast Asia." The other would be "The Role of Domestic Politics." In short, Lam brings a bird's-eye view from his perch in Singapore to understanding Japan's relationship with Southeast Asia while using his expertise in Japanese domestic politics to show how this influences foreign policy. Although shedding light on a significant but hitherto obscure aspect of Japanese foreign policy, Lam's book nevertheless engages the main academic debate in the field today, namely, whether Japan is "normalizing" into a great power that uses military force as an instrument to promote national objectives abroad. Looking at this issue from his unique angle, Lam is fully convincing when he argues that Japan has found its niche in international security: non-combat-related peace building. Lam is similarly persuasive in arguing that those promoting the idea of Japan "normalizing" into a military great power have overlooked this development: "In their accounts of the trajectory of Japan's role, purpose and identity in the world, Pyle, Samuels and Green have missed out an important direction in the nation's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War—the quest to end civil wars and begin post-conflict reconstruction" (p. 4). One might add to Lam's list of leading "normalizing" literature Christopher W. Hughes's Japan's Remilitarisation.1 On the other hand, Lam's volume joins a growing literature challenging the normal-nation thesis.2 [End Page 498] Lam is also convincing when he asserts that his study of five cases of Japanese peace building reveals that "claims that Tokyo's peace-building is reactive, ad hoc and essentially driven by Washington" are "off the mark" (p. 6). Indeed, there is little indication that the United States has ever pushed participation by the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) in UN peacekeeping missions, any more than it has seriously promoted UN peacekeeping itself. Finally, Lam insightfully observes that "Tokyo's dispatch of the SDF to East Timor . . . did not attract any disquiet or misgivings from its Asian neighbors as had earlier been the case with Cambodia, when there was the perception that deploying the SDF abroad was merely a prelude to Japan seeking to become a great military power again" (p. 41). The demonstration effect of Tokyo's peaceful and beneficial dispatch of the SDF to Cambodia thus reassured Asian nations, suggesting that peace building can empower Japan to "forge an identity as an active and positive 'peace-loving' country acceptable to its citizens and Asian neighbors" (p. 5). Less convincing is Lam's contention that the Fukuda Doctrine is not an extension of the Yoshida Doctrine as many observers claim but a radical departure from it, because the former calls for Japan to play a political role while the latter, in Lam's eyes, calls for avoiding any external political role. One may question Lam's understanding of the Yoshida Doctrine, but he at least notes the disagreement. More dubious is his insinuation that the two are equivalent if not competing doctrines (p. 19), when in fact the Yoshida Doctrine is a grand strategy, however implicit, while the Fukuda Doctrine, despite its explicit articulation, is a regional diplomatic strategy. The Fukuda Doctrine is silent on most important aspects of Japan's security, such as the U.S.-Japan alliance and potential threats. Most doubtful is Lam's claim that the...

This paper reflects on urban cultural development in a post-Soviet context. Most literature on arts and the city focuses either on Western cities, often recovering from post-industrial decline, or emerging global cities. However, post-socialist cities have remained under-investigated. The paper argues that the existing accounts of urban cultural development often underestimate the impact of national policy frameworks and historical trajectories. In post-Soviet countries, these national dynamics—often responding to broader diplomatic and cultural shifts—need to be considered. The paper uses the case study of Kazakhstan and its two major cities Almaty and Astana (recently renamed Nur-Sultan) to explore the role of path dependence and national policy in urban cultural development. It concludes by arguing for integrating a complexity perspective into the study of arts and the city, looking at macro policy and infrastructural changes, meso local urban responses, and micro dynamics of collaboration and work amongst creative and cultural practitioners in cities.

After the dissolution of the USSR, the new post-Soviet borders became a valuable research laboratory both for social scientists from the region and international scholars. Persisting Soviet legacies, on the one hand, and the continuing rebordering processes in the post-Soviet space, on the other, make post-Soviet borders an object of enduring scholarly interest and constitute post-Soviet border studies as a specific research field. This chapter outlines the contours of this multidisciplinary field and seeks to map its main research institutions, projects, and publications in multiple political, geographic, and academic contexts. It identifies regional ‘schools’ of border studies in the post-Soviet space as well as their origins. The chapter argues that the institutionalisation of border studies in the post-Soviet context has been closely connected, first, to the new geopolitical imaginaries of the post–Cold War era and, second, to some important paradigmatic shifts in social sciences that arrived in post-Soviet academia in the 1990s.

The arrival of Donald Trump to the White House generated many debates about the future of American foreign policy and, especially, about whether or not this country will consolidate its global and regional power. In particular, this chapter addresses the question of the current state and future of U.S. Empire in Argentina. In other words, how can we analyze U.S. global power and influence in Argentina under the Trump Administration? Is U.S. global power and influence increasing or diminishing in the region? Are there ideological, economic, military, and political dimensions to power and influence under Trump? Finally, what might come after Trump, regarding U.S.–Argentina relations? We argue that the Trump administration has been able to maintain and even increase the political, economic, military, and judicial influence on Argentina. Nevertheless, that influence cannot be evaluated without considering the Macri administration’s willingness to increase Argentine dependency on not only the U.S., but other countries as well. Most importantly, the Macri administration’s ideological predisposition towards Washington faces the need to maintain Chinese investments and financial support, generating disputes between Trump and Xi Jinping and adversely affecting Argentine foreign policy.

Contemporary Russian foreign policy is aggressive, belligerent, offensive, and swaggering. Official statements reflect the now-popular elite view that Russia is up, America is down, and Europe counts for little or nothing because of its disarray. statesmen and analysts are also prone to this tendency to make inflated claims of Russia as an Asian power. For example, in 2008, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that because Russian consumers are buying more Japanese cars, many of which are made in (European) Russia, Russia makes for the prosperity of Asia, and in particular, Japan with its entire potential. Lavrov also stated that the plan to hold the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Vladivostok in 2012 and growing involvement in Asian economic and political processes proves that Russia's integration into the [Asia-Pacific Region] has become a fait accompli.1 Similarly, the veteran foreign policy analyst Viktor Kremenyuk writes that the revival of Russian power is making it an increasingly serious competitor to the United States. He charges that Russia is successfully crowding out the United States from its position as China's No. 1 partner, and over time could become that country's quasi-ally.2It would be difficult to account for such grandiose delusions without understanding Russian elites' long-standing habit of making inflated claims about Russia to compensate for or conceal the weakness and disarray that they often perceive at home. However, when we examine Russian policy in Asia, and particularly the state of its far eastern provinces, whose effective development is essential for success in Asia, Moscow's tone changes. This may well reflect the differing audiences involved: in statements concerning Russian policy in Asia, Moscow and Russian elites are speaking to the local and central government elites directly responsible for making and implementing policy, whereas the aforementioned belligerent statements are targeted at different audiences; the swaggering tone is aimed to induce recognition of strength and power. This tone is intended for an audience of foreign elites that Russia wants to influence and the domestic public, whom the government wants to convince of its stalwart defense of great-power status. In this respect, statements about Russian foreign policy seek to convince audiences at home (both elite and popular) and abroad that Russia really is the great global power that its leaders want and imagine it to be. Thus, rhetoric about Russian foreign policy in Europe and Asia is very much an identity project.3However, in the Russian Far East (RFE), the reality continues to fall short of the ideal, and Russian authorities therefore feel compelled to admit the gap between the real and desired outcomes and to frighten domestic audiences for the purpose of energizing them in pursuit of that great-power status. For that reason, policy-relevant remarks that are directed more toward the elite domestic audiences who must implement policy contain a quite open anxiety, a sense of frustration, sometimes even a sense of being lost, and mounting apprehension about the future course of events. Russian authorities have been apprehensive about their Far East policy since 2000, if not earlier. Their apprehension reflects Moscow's continuing realization that Russia is failing to develop the RFE as it has long intended to do and its attempt to galvanize local elites by any available means to develop the RFE work.For example, in 2000, President Vladimir Putin warned local audiences that unless Russia put more effort into the region's development, they would end up speaking Korean, Japanese, or Chinese. Putin's warning left little doubt about Russian fears regarding its Asiatic holdings and which foreign powers might step in should Russia falter.4 In 2002, the prestigious Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (SVOP) admonished its elite audience that Siberia and the RFE would inevitably be depopulated. …

This chapter deals with the mythologisation of World War II in Russian state propaganda and information operations. First, it characterises the domestic determinants of Russia’s foreign policy; then, it identifies the objectives of the politics of memory from the Kremlin’s perspective. Finally, it points to the connection between the narrative of the Great Patriotic War and Russia’s pursuit of its foreign policy goals. The sacralised myth of the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), focused on the Soviet victory over Nazism, is a central element of the Kremlin’s politics of memory. The messianic myth of victory is treated as a current issue to be raised in contemporary international politics and a vital theme in the anti-Western ideological offensive. It serves to cover up dark pages in Russia’s imperial history, justify the use of force as a legitimate method of pursuing national interests and legitimise the Yalta order as the apogee of Russia’s international status. Moscow considers the Soviet post-war era as a reference point for its contemporary great-power ambitions and strategic goals. These include restoring Russia’s hegemony in the post-Soviet area and reshaping the European security architecture in line with the Kremlin’s interests.

World Revolution and International Diplomacy, 1900–39 Jan Hennings Alastair Kocho-Williams, Russian and Soviet Diplomacy, 1900–39 xii + 215 pp. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. ISBN-13 978-0230252646. $100.00. Key to the participation of a state in international diplomacy is its recognition by foreign powers. Recognition, however, cannot be imposed on others by brute force. Successful negotiation requires membership in a group of states with shared norms, practices, and procedures. Diplomats have to master the “structure, grammar, and rules of a common language; … the rules and understandings underlying the practice of international politics.”1 Revolutionaries have always faced difficulties in communicating to the world the legitimacy of their new state. The English Civil War and the French Revolution are cases in point. The leaders of social revolutions often vacillated between sweeping efforts at replacing the symbolic sphere of monarchs with the insignia of a new ideology, on the one hand, and the alignment of new political practices with the old international order, on the other.2 But one need not hark back to the early modern period to see this dynamic: the same [End Page 204] principle holds true for the Soviet case. Alastair Kocho-Williams has written an insightful monograph about the tensions between traditional diplomacy, inherited from the Russian Empire, and Soviet foreign relations. A central concern of his book is whether diplomacy was shaped by developments external to the course of events in Russia and the Soviet Union, or whether diplomatic practice evolved from national political ideology and domestic politics. Recently, diplomatic history has emerged from the shadows that the proverbial “great men” continued to cast over the discipline while cultural and social historians were shedding light on many unexplored areas of the past. Historians of international relations have since called for an opening up of their field by turning to “culture” broadly conceived.3 Meanwhile, the cultural turn has embraced high politics, top-level decision making, and foreign policy, resulting in numerous studies of the sociocultural conditions and symbolic dimensions of the political process across domestic and international domains.4 The convergence of politics and culture set the stage for the emergence of a field that, labeled as the “new diplomatic history,” has been bringing together scholars of diverse methodological backgrounds, different periods, and varied geographical expertise, including Russian and Soviet history.5 Their interests range from traditional subjects such as the European states-system, diplomatic institutions, recruitment and staff [End Page 205] organization, to nonstate actors, go-betweens, language, ritual, norms, and behavior of diplomatic practice, cultural encounter, and network analysis, as well as broader literary, legal, and intellectual contexts. Although Kocho-Williams does not explicitly situate his work within this historiographic landscape, his original, multiarchival research is an important contribution to the rejuvenated field of diplomatic history, especially since he covers a period, and a world region, that because of both linguistic barriers and a predominant focus on more recent eras tends to be underrepresented. Kocho-Williams’s analysis focuses on the changes wrought upon Russian diplomacy by the revolutions during the transition from the late tsarist empire to the new Soviet state. Drawing on source materials from archives in Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the author combines a prosopographic analysis of Russian foreign policy institutions with a study of diplomatic norms, behavior, ceremony, and conceptions of prestige. For the latter, he makes moderate use of Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital, although, in general, he gives significantly more room to solid institutional history and biographical case studies than to the cultural unpacking of revolutionary diplomacy.6 The book proceeds in strict chronological order. It covers 40 years of Russian and Soviet foreign policy from the beginning of the 20th century to the eve of World War II, tracing the internal friction between international diplomatic culture and socialist dogma in four stages. Taking 1900 as his starting point, Kocho-Williams emphasizes continuity in the period up to 1917. Until then, the institutional culture and the composition of the diplomatic corps were shaped by the administrative instrument of the tsar’s foreign policy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministerstvo inostrannykh del, MID). Despite reforms resulting from the 1905 revolution, the...

The European Union is still emerging as a fully fledged foreign policy actor. The vagaries of this process are clearly visible, yet insufficiently explained in the EU policies towards the post-Soviet space. EU Foreign Policy and Post-Soviet Conflicts examines EU intervention and non-intervention in conflict resolution, with a specific focus on the EU’s role in the post-soviet conflicts in the South Caucasus and Moldova: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria. It explains how EU foreign policy affected these conflicts, but more importantly what EU intervention in these conflicts reveal about the EU itself. Based on extensive field research, the author argues that the reluctant EU intervention in post-Soviet conflicts results from a dichotomous relationship between EU institutions and some EU member states. Popescu argues this demonstrates that EU institutions use policies of ‘stealth intervention’ where they seek to play a greater role in the post-Soviet space, but they do so through relatively low-profile, uncontroversial and depoliticised actions in order to avoid visible Russian opposition. Exploring an array of questions related to the EU as a foreign policy actor, this book traces the politics of conflict intervention by EU institutions using original empirical data related to the EU decision making process and will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, conflict resolution, foreign policy and Post-Soviet politics.

SEER, 94, 3, july 2016 584 Blum, Douglas W. The Social Process of Globalization: Return Migration and Cultural Change in Kazakhstan. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2016. vii + 214 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £64.99: $99.99. Molchanov, Mikhail A. Eurasian Regionalisms and Russian Foreign Policy. The International Political Economy of New Regionalisms Series. Ashgate, Farnham and Burlington, VT, 2015. xiii + 190. Map. Tables. Bibliography. Index. £60.00. These authors share a geographical focus on Russia’s main neighbours and partners in the post-Soviet region (Kazakhstan and for Molchanov also Ukraine and Belarus) and a thematic focus on the process of transnational integration. That said, it is remarkable that there should be no perceptible links between their analyses. In large part, of course, that is because Douglas Blum (Providence College, RI) is concerned with the diffusion of cultural values while Mikhail Molchanov (St Thomas University, Canada) writes about political economy and geopolitics. But there is more to it than that. What Blum has produced is an account of the experience of young Kazakhs who study in the United States, are influenced to a greater or lesser extent by American cultural values and practices such as self-sufficiency and informality, and then have to ‘negotiate cultural difference’ after returning home. This is a worthy and interesting topic in its own right. What I would question is how much it really tells us about ‘the social process of globalization’ (which is, after all, the title of the book). Nowhere does the author assess the importance of returning students relative to other carriers of cultural change. And by listening exclusively to people who studied in the United States while ignoring those who studied in Russia, Turkey and especially China, he equates globalization with Americanization. (A rapidly increasing proportion of the members of Kazakh and other Central Asian elites obtained their higher education in China.) ‘Globalization’ here is no more than a fashionable label attached to a study of cultural contact between two national societies. Kazakhstan,astheEurasianstateparexcellence(Molchanov,p.85),isapivotal and committed participant in efforts at Eurasian integration. Molchanov has provided a useful and balanced assessment of the various evolving and overlapping regional integration projects in Eurasia (defined as the former Soviet Union plus China). His approach is refreshing in several respects. First, he differs from many commentators in not viewing these projects solely or primarily as vehicles of Russian (or Chinese) hegemonic ambitions, although he acknowledges the centrality of Russian (and Chinese) foreign and energy policies. ‘The regionalist turn in Russia’s foreign policy’, he concludes, ‘suggests flexibility and adaptation, not neoimperialism, hegemonism or reassertion of spheres of influence’ (p. 157). REVIEWS 585 Second, he does not, as do many Eurocentric theorists of regional integration, adopt the model of the European Union as a universal benchmark for comparison. Finally, he is to be commended simply for taking Eurasian integration projects seriously and not assuming that they are impractical and doomed to failure. Molchanov’s analysis of Ukraine’s ‘multivectorism’, although already overtaken by events, remains essentially relevant. He attributes the tragedy in Ukraine not to regionalism as such but to ‘the contamination of [regional] economics by geopolitics’ (p. 157) — a distortion for which the West bears much of the responsibility. Where then does this leave ‘globalization’? Is it just a fancy and misleading name for a specific class of regional integration processes — those centred in Europe, the United States and Japan? Would it not then be more honest to make regionalism our central concept and recognize that we still live in a divided world? Providence, RI Stephen D. Shenfield Wilson, Andrew. Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, 2014. ix + 236 pp. Maps. Tables. Notes. Index. £12.99 (paperback). One of the first of many books to come off the presses following the tumultuous events in Ukraine that began in early 2014 was Andrew Wilson’s latest study of a country he has written on extensively and about which he is a respected expert. The book can be divided into three parts. The first three chapters provide context and background to the crisis. The following four lay out a chronology...

This article gives an outline of conceptual foundations of Japan's political course towards the post-Soviet states and analyzes evolution of its foreign policy in the region since the collapse of the Soviet Union until Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration in the period from 1991 to 2016.As a result of conducted research the author concludes that Japan's policy in the post-Soviet region has expanded gradually from East to West and that its original strategy is still utilized by Japan's government.After the collapse of the Soviet Union, besides financial and nuclear security assistance to the region, the government of Japan focused on two main tasks, one being search of ways to resolve the dispute of the Kuril Islands - one of the most important issues of Japan's modern foreign policy, and the other one - establishing relations with Central Asian republics. The development of relationship between Japan and Central Asia was achieved by introducing the concept of "Eurasian diplomacy" and "Central Asia plus Japan" dialogue which led to further expansion of the scope of Japan's foreign policy towards the West. In 2006 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan Taro Aso introduced the concept of "Arch of Freedom and Prosperity"in which Ukraine was mentioned for the first time. It is proved that the value-oriented diplomacy of Japan has deep roots and forms the basis of the policies of Japan's current administration. As for the financial assistance allocated to the region, the author emphasizes Japan's Official Development Assistance which was provided starting from1994. Inthis regard it is noted that the biggest recipient in the period from 1994 to 2014 was Uzbekistan.Further development of relations between Japan and post-Soviet states has good perspectives. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policy in the region is based on the previously introduced concepts and, at the same time, is more proactive compared to Japan's past governments. Therefore, one can expect positive trends and continued success of Japan's "soft power" diplomacy in Central Asia against its non-interference in the internal affairs of its Central Asian partners. On the other hand, an issue for Japan could be Shinzo Abe's promise to resolve the dispute of the Kuril Islands and to improve relations with Russia. It is believed that Japan will continue to support Ukraine in the issue of Russia's occupation of the Crimean Peninsula which took place in 2014 and its military aggression in Eastern Ukraine, and will be forced to balance its interests in both countries.

As a middle-ranking power that projects its vision internationally and aspires for global recognition, India is embedded in its specific traditions and presents itself as a voice of the Global South. India promotes dialogue as opposed to confrontation and has from the highest level stated ‘this is not the time for war’. Peace as rhetoric and practice constitutes a feminist principle. In the light of this positioning, what would a feminist foreign policy (FFP) look like and how should it be measured? In this article, we trace recent debates on an FFP and examine how it can conceptually apply to Indian foreign policy. Policymakers who seek positive change advocate an FFP, in keeping with UN Security Council Resolutions (SCR) 1325 and others that call for the participation of women in institutions of peace, politics and security. With a focus on the case of India, we broaden the paradigm of the FFP to include internationally accepted norms like sustainable development goals and human security be part of the goals of FFP. Further, we seek to broaden the metrics of how FFP can challenge patriarchal systems and intersecting oppressions. In doing so, it is situated at the intersection of the literature on critical foreign policy analysis and postcolonial scholarship (Achilleos-Sarll, 2018, Journal of International Women’s Studies , 19[1], 34–49; Martin de Almagro & Ryan, 2019, European Journal of International Relations , 25[4], 1059–1079), with a focus on the Indian experience.

This is the introductory chapter of the book. This chapter explains the background and relevance of the topic of the book – the process of a national higher education reform in the post-Soviet space such as Ukraine until passing the Law about Higher Education in 2014, and the ways in which this story can inform our understanding of some aspects of the Europeanisation in the post-Soviet context. The Bologna reform is, arguably, one of the expressions of Europeanisation in post-Soviet countries that belong to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The Bologna Process is an international policy project for the standardisation of higher education structures in the European Higher Education Area. It comprised 29 European countries at the start of the Bologna Process in 1999, and it started incorporating more states later, a lot of which were not part of the EU. Beside the overarching goal to create the EHEA, a number of concrete objectives, called the action lines, were identified, such as the adoption of a common system of credits and cycles of study process, the development of an easily readable diploma supplement issued to graduates, the promotion of student and faculty mobility and the assurance of higher education quality. This chapter also presents methodological considerations associated with designing the research presented in this book, such as conducting interviews and identifying policy documents – and how thematic analysis was applied to these two types of data. The case of Ukraine is characterised as instrumental because, beside the contribution it makes to how we see the Bologna reform in Ukraine itself, this case study is important for understanding wider Europeanisation issues.

Note on the Transliteration List of Tables Chronology of Key Foreign Policy Events, 1985-2015 Preface Chapter 1: Understanding Change and Continuity in Russia's Foreign Policy Chapter 2: The Cold War Crisis and the Soviet New Thinking Chapter 3: Post-Cold War Euphoria and Russia's Liberal Westernism Chapter 4: New Security Challenges and Great Power Balancing Chapter 5: The World after September 11 and Pragmatic Cooperation Chapter 6: U.S. Regime Change Strategy and Great Power Assertiveness Chapter 7: Global Instability and Russia's Vision of Modernization Chapter 8: The West, the Non-West, and Russia's Civilizational Turn Chapter 9: Conclusions and Lessons Essential Reading Topics for Discussion or Simulation Index About the Author

The article examines current issues of economic cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan taking into account the influence of the present-day geopolitical situation on its multi-vector foreign policy. Kazakhstan plays an important role in the Central Asian region, is a member of the EAEU and other organizations with the participation of Russia, an important trading partner of Russia in the post-Soviet space. Maintaining close ties and economic integration with Kazakhstan is of great strategic importance for the Russian economy. The article scrutinizes the transformation of Kazakhstan’s foreign economic strategy and presents the reasons for strengthening the multi-vector nature of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy. The change in cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in the context of increasing sanctions pressure on the Russian economy is analyzed. Kazakhstan’s role in reorienting Russia’s trade flows during 2022–2024, as well as changes in its foreign economic policy as external pressure from Western countries and threats of secondary sanctions increase are examined.

This volume explains China’s foreign policy from the perspective of its historical recovery after 1949 and the country’s subsequent rise as a great power, including its transformation into a global power. It also illuminates how China has, in tandem with its rise, developed an increasing array of political, economic, ‘sharp power’ and military capabilities that is helping it to further its increasingly expansive foreign policy objectives. The volume examines two key questions: What have been the implications of China’s rise for its foreign policy? And how has an increasingly powerful and confident China used a range of foreign policy instruments to pursue its expanding national interests in Asia and beyond? The volume is divided into three parts, covering the conceptualization and drivers of China’s foreign policy, China’s relations with the world, and the instruments of China’s foreign policy, namely its economic power, military capabilities and its ‘sharp power’ manipulation of information and relationships. It will be of interest to academics, students and researchers interested in understanding China’s role in world politics.