David Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power

Excerpt

I concur with the author that this book is by far the most comprehensive assessment of China as a global power. It covers a whole range of dimensions of a global China consisting of both its hard power such as its economic and security capabilities and its soft power such as its global governance, global diplomacy and global cultural presence. I particularly like the accurate depiction of China’s current dilemma about its global persona in Chapter 2 “China’s Global Identities” through Shambaugh’s interviews of both a significant number of noted Chinese international relations scholars and Chinese government officials, including high-profile ones such as Liu Yunshan, Wang Chen and Yang Jiechi. The author significantly relies on such interviews in most of the rest of the chapters, except the chapter on security. The ethnographic approach used by the author creates a definitive advantage for this book over similar books. Due to the author’s Chinese language competence, the book also offers an excellent review of the contemporary Chinese international relations (IR) discourse originally appearing in Chinese for the English-speaking IR community, bridges the gap in communication between the two communities separated by the linguistic barrier. …