Joshua Eisenman and Eric Heginbotham, eds., China Steps Out: Beijing’s Major Power Engagement with the Developing World

Excerpt

Joshua Eisenman and Eric Heginbotham should be commended for the important contribution they are making to both strategic studies and comparative political science with this authoritative and insightful volume, which brings together an impressive list of notable experts on China and the regions of the world under study. With a focus on data and developments since the pivotal year of 2012, Eisenman and Heginbotham are research project team leaders in creating a structured design in the tradition of comparative politics to ensure systematic comparisons across cases. To “avoid bias” Eisenman and Heginbotham use the regions that “China itself considers part of the developing world,” and the “notions” of “strategic periphery” and “outer periphery” to rank and present the regional case study chapters based on “strategic importance to Beijing;” they also ensure that only “standardized data sets from authoritative sources,” are used to provide systematic and accurate comparisons across countries and regions (p. 12). The six regional profile chapters are, ordered here as they appear in the book: Southeast Asia; Central Asia; South Asia; Africa; Middle East and the Arab World; and Latin America and the Caribbean. …