Lanham; Boulder; New York; London: Lexington Books [an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.], 2019. x, 300 pp. (Tables, graphs, figures, B&W photos.) US$115.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-4985-8344-2.
Over the past few decades, China has continued to transform its growing economic power into political leverage. It is now at the forefront of international donors and investors and, with its trade and infrastructure investments—part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—it is seeking new strategic interests. As a result, China could reshape the geopolitical and international normative order. In the face of China’s rise, a burgeoning literature on its global influence has emerged. Often, however, studies on influence have focused on the process through which policy is made, but not on the instruments for such policy. Other studies have instead enumerated economic, social, political, and military resources, but have not discussed how China has effectively exercised its power in promoting its political ends and how this affects other countries’ policy choices and decisions. In the light of stereotypes that circulate in the media about a global China, the book Challenges to China’s Economic Statecraft: A Global Perspective disaggregates China’s influence abroad and contributes to a better understanding of its new global reach. It does so by focusing on empirical examples of Chinese economic statecraft. Compared to emerging scholarship on China’s economic statecraft, the book, edited by Yi Edward Wang and Wei Liang, addresses not only the challenges China is facing in this area and the reasons for its lack of success, but also the role of the target countries. The eleven chapters of the book address different global aspects of Chinese economic statecraft: bilateral relations with Russia, South Korea, New Zealand, and Canada (part 1), China’s economic statecraft in the broader regions of Africa, Latin America, the Gulf countries and Europe (part 2), and China’s economic statecraft in selected international institutions (part 3).
What emerges from the work is that Chinese economic statecraft, while responding to a broader “Grand Strategy,” articulates itself in a variety of ways. For instance, although China prefers positive tools of economic statecraft, it has also included more coercive ones, like unofficial sanctions directed at South Korea (chapter 2). The tools it uses vary greatly, and since the launch of the BRI, they also include critical infrastructure such as nuclear power (chapter 8). Moreover, as the contributors reveal, despite China’s efforts, its economic statecraft results are at best mixed. For instance, in Africa, the perceptions of the different economic instruments China adopts for its statecraft vary greatly (chapter 4), and in Latin America, domestic factors in the target countries can have a significant impact on the results (chapter 6). Chinese economic statecraft is far from linear, and its influence is equally so. It faces challenges stemming from external and internal factors, such as the presence of Russia in Central Asia (chapter 1) and of the United States in the Gulf Cooperation Council (chapter 5) and in Latin America (chapter 6). China’s aspirations to shape global governance, which prompted its increased financial support for international institutions, have also been occasionally challenged by the very structure of said institutions, as in the case of UN peacekeeping, where the final mandates are still determined collectively by the Security Council (chapter 11). Some challenges are the result of the Chinese domestic system: for instance, in Europe, China’s attempts to leverage its economic power are limited by its unique party structure, which generates suspicion, as well as by its aggressive bidding in European countries (chapter 7).
The book not only addresses China’s influence, measuring the effectiveness of economic statecraft in its different dimensions, but it also tackles the current debates about the existence of China’s Grand Strategy. It proves how China’s comprehensive and diverse economic statecraft is part of its Grand Strategy. The new use of economic techniques to influence the behaviour of other countries, regions, and institutions corresponds, the editors argue, to a paradigmatic change in its foreign policy (introduction, 2). What the term “Grand Strategy” means is not explicitly defined in the book. However, if one takes for definition the use of different policies and instruments to advance a state’s national interests, one can see how the various Chinese economic statecraft strategies described in the book serve the common objective of China’s Grand Strategy: safeguarding the Chinese Communist Party leadership, securing resources, maintaining the unity of the country, and expanding its influence abroad. In this sense, even investments in critical infrastructures in the UK and the Czech Republic that do not have directly political objectives, and instead are motivated by economic and commercial interests (chapter 8), nevertheless contribute to China’s Grand Strategy, as they help to safeguard access to resources and economic opportunities for the broader national interest of the country.
China’s economic rise does not directly correspond to an increase in its influence on other countries or on global governance rules. Although it has created and financed new institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which for the authors represents a projection of Chinese normative power (chapter 9), overall, China’s increased participation in governance (chapter 10) and in United Nations peacekeeping operations (chapter 11), seems aimed more at upholding the current system rather than changing it dramatically to promote a new Chinese model. Instead, China tends to adapt to target countries’ and regions’ political and economic characteristics and strategic values, as in the case of New Zealand and Canada (chapter 3), or South Korea (chapter 2). The adaptability of Chinese statecraft to local situations should give more leverage to countries that have more strategic value for China or that have alternative markets. China is no monolith, and the same applies to its economic statecraft. While the results as well as the objectives of China’s economic statecraft are disparate, they all coalesce to shape its Grand Strategy as a new global power. The book provides valuable insights into the multifaceted growth of Chinese influence globally and the concrete articulation of its Grand Strategy.
Maria Adele Carrai
Harvard University, Cambridge