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Overview
Despite its impressive size and population, economic vitality, and drive to upgrade its military, China remains a vulnerable nation surrounded by powerful rivals and potential foes. Understanding China's foreign policy means fully appreciating these geostrategic challenges, which persist even as the country gains increasing influence over its neighbors. Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell analyze China's security concerns on four fronts: at home, with its immediate neighbors, in surrounding regional systems, and in the world beyond Asia. By illuminating the issues driving Chinese policy, they offer a new perspective on the country's rise and a strategy for balancing Chinese and American interests in Asia.
Though rooted in the present, Nathan and Scobell's study makes ample use of the past, reaching back into history to illuminate the people and institutions shaping Chinese strategy today. They also examine Chinese views of the United States; explain why China is so concerned about Japan; and uncover China's interests in such problematic countries as North Korea, Iran, and the Sudan. The authors probe recent troubles in Tibet and Xinjiang and explore their links to forces beyond China's borders. They consider the tactics deployed by mainland China and Taiwan, as Taiwan seeks to maintain autonomy in the face of Chinese advances toward unification. They evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of China's three main power resources -- economic power, military power, and soft power.
The authors conclude with recommendations for the United States as it seeks to manage China's rise. Chinese policymakers understand that their nation's prosperity, stability, and security depend on cooperation with the United States. If handled wisely, the authors believe, relations between the two countries can produce mutually beneficial outcomes for both Asia and the world.
Columbia University Press
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
A fretful—but not too fretful—colossus takes the world stage in this thoughtful, tepid study of China’s foreign relations. Political scientists Nathan (Chinese Democracy) and Scobell (China’s Use of Military Force) survey the threats and quandaries the Chinese government perceives: a crazy ally in North Korea; squabbles with neighbors over oil and gas deposits in the South China Sea; competing territorial claims on the Indian border; restive minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang province; uncertain access to vital overseas resources and sea lanes; the eternal turf battle with Taiwan; a United States that patrols China’s coasts and rings it with bases. Fortunately, these insecurities seem to have produced a fairly unobjectionable Chinese “strategy of trying to stabilize its borders and reassure its neighbors.” The authors’ realist take on international affairs produces a lucid, readable, well-judged, rather dry analysis of China’s concerns and the domestic and external pressures that drive its policymaking. They briefly entertain scenarios of instability and conflict, but their tone is reassuring; as it builds its economy—and the globe’s—China’s ambitions will stay restrained and broadly compatible with those of America and the international community. This measured assessment shows that, compared with Mao’s era of apocalyptic paranoia, China and the world have become safer, duller places. (Nov.)Gideon Rose
The rise of China is the most important international trend of our time, and this superb book is the best guide to it that I've seen. Broad, deep, and wise, it is simply an indispensable introduction to all aspects of China's ongoing encounter with the world at large. Any politician or pundit who wants to say anything at all about this subject should have to pass a test on Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell's tour de force before doing so.
Richard Bush
For the scholar, student, and general reader, China's Search for Security is a source of value. Nathan and Scobell successfully view the world through Chinese eyes and provide just the right mix of interpretation and narrative. Nuggets of insight glitter on every page.
Zhe Sun
Even though China's foreign policy has become more practical and confident, China's rise has generated regional and international anxiety. Nathan and Scobell probe the mix of forces reshaping Chinese strategic deliberations, providing the deepest insight yet into how Chinese decision-makers perceive their geostrategic predicaments and security challenges.
Aryeh Neier
Nathan and Scobell are extremely well qualified to assess China's foreign policy. As their book makes clear, understanding that policy is essential to the consideration of virtually every issue of international concern. I strongly recommend China's Search for Security to all those with an interest in global public policy.
Library Journal
Nathan (political science, Columbia Univ.) and Ross (political science, Boston Coll.) aim here to define China's strategic motives in its foreign policy. They assert that China's foreign relations are based on realist principles and that U.S. misperceptions of Chinese behavior stem from ignorance about China's security concerns. The authors first deal with China's historic relations with specific countries and blocs, including Russia, the United States, and Japan. They then tackle such issues as military power, economics, territorial integrity (vis--vis Taiwan and Hong Kong), and China's security and the world order. The chapter on territorial integrity focuses mostly on Taiwan and, as a result, the following chapter on the foreign policy of Taiwan is redundant. Nevertheless, this insightful book provides a concise analysis of Chinese foreign policy. As such, it is recommended for all collections.Peggy Spitzer Christoff, Oak Park, Ill.Kirkus Reviews
A cool appraisal of China's place in the world, which discounts the more fevered expectations of Chinese aggression.Nathan (Political Science/Columbia Univ.) and Ross (Political Science/Boston Coll.), while noting that China can be very aggressive (it has engaged in conflicts with the US, Russia, Japan, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Taiwan in this century), believe that it is vulnerable and aware of its vulnerability. Its weaknesses are both military—"by far the weakest of the four great powers in Asia"—and economic, with an economic strategy "that will succeed only through intensified integration into the world economy." China has, in effect, found itself having to catch a ride on the Asian tigers, with all the usual dangers attached to such transportation. Prior to the Nixon visit to Beijing in 1972, Chinese policymakers reckoned that the economy had to grow 6 to 10 percent a year to improve living standards enough to prevent economic and social breakdown. This has meant that China, potentially one of the most self-sufficient countries in the world, has become increasingly dependent not just on world trade but on the attitude of institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. This has led to immense improvements in the nation's living standards but has come at the cost of opening up the country to the very kinds of social and cultural forces that topple repressive regimes. Despite the substantial differences between the US and China—the trade deficit, human rights, Taiwan—Nathan and Ross conclude that the fundamental interests of the two countries "pull them together more than they drive them apart."
A thoughtful, dispassionate, and persuasive look at a great power during a time of great challenge and change.