London; New York: Routledge [an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business], 2018. xiv, 438 pp. (Tables, graphs, figure.) US$155.00, cloth; US$25.98, ebook. ISBN 978-1-138-69232-9.
Definitely the best book on its topic, China Steps Out: Beijing’s Major Power Engagement with the Developing World, updates China and the Developing World (2007), which was largely edited by the same team. The editors rode themselves and the other contributors hard, writing chapters about Chinese links to six large parts of the developing world: Southeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Each of these essays begins with a short introduction and historical summary of China’s links to the relevant region, followed by evidence of China’s objectives and methods, then regional actors’ views of China, followed with policy implications for the United States, and a chapter conclusion, which allows for the structures of the central chapters to echo one another. Very few books with as many as ten authors hold together so neatly. This virtue is a major credit to the editors.
After an introductory chapter and a historical overview of China’s expanding periphery, the book launches into rich contemporary detail that this brief review cannot hope to cover completely. Practically every reader will learn specific things they did not know before. To note one such insight: the Southeast Asia chapter shows how China benefits from an ASEAN norm that decisions are made by consensus. Some member states, such as Thailand, have important Chinese-descended elites that thus tend to stabilize China’s links to all ASEAN members—despite China’s recent forward military posture toward the region.
The Central Asia chapter highlights how China’s main aim for that region is stability in the PRC part of it, i.e. Xinjiang. Concern about Uighurs dominates national policy in that direction, but for related reasons is not allowed to dominate rhetoric, which instead stresses trade and political ties with the the “stans.” Britain, Russia/USSR, and the US have all lost more than they have won from their Central Asian involvement, and it is unclear whether China—because of its concerns in Xinjiang— will avoid paying similar costs.
In relations with South Asia, too, China prioritizes its own territorial integrity to an extent that may surprise most readers. This is well-known with regards to Tibet; but the chapter also has material about the Aksai Chin and less-well-known places such as the Shaksgam Valley (which Pakistan ceded to China without India’s recognition) and the Doklam plateau in Bhutan. Details on such topics (including many ties to the Maldives) inform this and other chapters, and they teach much. Larger South Asian subjects, notably China’s interest in having balanced strategic links to India, of course come up too, but these are more widely known.
Economic concerns dominate Chinese policies in Africa. By no means are all the relevant Chinese actors part of the PRC state; many are individual entrepreneurs who have recently migrated to Africa. This continent’s populace is especially young, so cultural policies and efforts to evangelize China’s governance model are salient. Africa’s nations are diverse and understandably sensitive about any external power that can be seen as neo-colonial. Their distance from China makes profit, rather than territorial integrity, relatively important as a generator of what China and Chinese nationals do there. But these factors also link back to PRC politics and the Party’s desire for maximal domestic support.
The rise of China requires oil. Assuring supplies from all major Middle East sources, including Iran and Saudi Arabia despite their bitter conflicts, is a pillar of PRC policy. Outside actors can do little to reconcile Sunnis with Shias, Israelis with Arabs, Turks with Kurds, and so forth. China is a so-called neutral partner, dealing with any country that has what it needs.
Latin America and the Caribbean is another diverse region where the PRC’s interests have been mainly economic. Many mooted Latin American projects have become unfinished “dry canals.” This reagion contains more than half of the governments that recognize Taiwan. Ethnic Chinese, like others, have laundered money in the region and have profited from selling precursors of illicit drugs. But many Latin Americans welcome Chinese as a balance to “los yanquis.”
Faults are hard to find in this tome. The coverage, confined to China’s relations with the developing world, naturally gives a lower profile to other countries such as ex-superpower Russia or the democratic nations of North America and Europe. The book sticks to its topic, albeit with special attention in each chapter to the interests of one developed country, the US.
The writers are all true experts in their areas, and the editors have done a brilliant job of coordination. China Steps Out can serve as a handbook for businesspeople and lawyers, diplomats and scholars. Its wealth of rich detail about China’s links to so many places in the developing world may obscure a theme that the editors bring out in their introductory and concluding chapters: regime security for the Chinese Communist Party tends to guide all its policies on national boundaries, economic profits, and diplomatic friends in the developing world.
The book’s concluding chapter wisely ends with a warning that many of China’s huge loans to developing countries are unlikely to be repaid. “Belt and Road” allocations may reach a trillion dollars or more. Entities within the PRC, including some with few international links, are using some of this money. China advocates a multi-polar, many-actor, “democratic” international order. It has used its wealth toward buying more of that structure. If this later proves to have been too expensive, because too many of its big loans in the developing world become bad debts, it may watch where it “steps out” with increasing care. Yet China’s efforts have recently been impressive, and this book is the best source for learning about them.
Lynn T. White III
Princeton University, Princeton