Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior. Edited by Suisheng Zhao. [Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2004. 319 pages. US$26.95, paperback edition. ISBN 0-7656-1285-2.]

Suisheng Zhao of the University of Denver has assembled this volume out of articles that appeared recently in the Journal of Contemporary China, which he edits. Its chapters cover recognisable terrain for political scientists – such as whether China, as a rising power, will seek to maximise its relative or absolute gains, the likelihood its increasing power will tend toward status-quo or belligerent lines, and the degree of Chinese ‘exceptionalism’ when compared with other countries. As the subtitle might suggest, the contributions present China in a favourable light, stressing how China’s leaders have spurned the ideological purism of Communist foreign policy for pragmatism and judicious weighing of national interests, with only nationalism to serve as a double-edged sword by conferring legitimacy on the government but potentially also taking it away.

The assertion that pragmatic strategic calculations govern Chinese foreign policy contrasts with such other interpretations as those of David Lampton in Same Bed, Different Dreams (University of California, 2001), which assigns a large role to domestic politics, or Peter Gries in Understanding Chinese Nationalism (University of California, 2004), who highlights the constraining role of nationalist ideology on the ability of China’s leaders to deescalate crises with other countries. The contribution of Zhao’s book lies less in defending the assertion of pragmatism against those competing perspectives than in drawing upon it to offer fresh material concerning a variety of topics in Chinese foreign policy: nationalism, strategic culture, and Chinese relations with the West, regional neighbours, and international regimes such as non-proliferation.

Zhao, who has written elsewhere about the prospects of Chinese democracy, the Taiwan Straits Crisis, and the transformation of the Chinese Communist Party from a revolutionary party to a status-quo centred ruling party, here himself offers chapters on the variants of Chinese nationalism (nativist, antitraditionalist, and pragmatic; and propagated by the state, by independent intellectuals, and through popular pressure), adjustments in China’s foreign policy after Tian'anmen Square, and on China's policy toward its neighbours. These chapters number among the volume’s strongest offerings. Other chapters are also worth note: Lowell Dittmer’s beautifully written piece on the history of the Sino-Russian relationship is one; another is Lau Siu-kai’s preference of historical research over broad generalisation to demonstrate that at least in the case of Hong Kong, pragmatism predated Deng Xiaoping. Andrew Scobell, who has studied Chinese strategic culture elsewhere, presents a limited study here. It may be that, from his finding that some high-level members of the People’s Liberation Army were reluctant to go to war in Korea and in several subsequent conflicts, we may infer the existence of a Chinese strategic culture, which holds comparatively unchanging decades later; but Scobell has not here demonstrated that, and to his credit he is rightly modest in his conclusions.

The most ambitious chapter is likely Rex Li’s, in which he notes the insufficiencies of realism and liberalism and instead offers a theory in which considerations of likely returns from increased trade impel Chinese leaders to pursue more pacific or belligerent policies toward the West. His attempted reconciliation is interesting, but does not seem to fit the timing or participants’ observations either in Mao’s détente with President Nixon or in the more recent warming of Sino-American ties which took place between 1995 and 1999. In the latter case, the serious possibility of expanded trade ties was not raised until the signing of the U.S.-China WTO Agreement in November 1999—but Beijing’s decision to moderate its policy toward the United States in the wake of the Taiwan Straits crisis occurred in August 1995, before a meeting between Warren Christopher and Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen in Brunei. Like the earlier warming of 1971-2, it appears to have been a security decision, made largely on security grounds. While many analysts in Beijing continued to believe the US was attempting strategic encirclement of China, and more dovish voices had been discredited by the American extension of a visa to Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, Chinese President Jiang Zemin believed improved ties would permit China to pursue its interests in a world in which his nation needed America more than the latter needed China.

Also deserving mention is Jing-dong Yuan’s fascinating treatment of motivations driving China’s relationship with the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Technology transfer provides a way of expanding Chinese influence in the Middle East and Pakistan, and retaliating against the West or retaining leverage in negotiations; on the other hand, Yuan sees a process of learning of international standards in China’s moving from Maoist calls for anticolonial nuclear proliferation toward endorsing indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Other interesting selections would have benefited from greater fleshing out. Wu Xinbo’s chapter on antinomies within Chinese foreign policy is given short treatment, and it would have been interesting to see Wu connect these contradictions with policy outcomes, with processes tending to indicate when one set may win out over the other. Zi Zhongyun’s chapter on ideology and the Sino-American relationship summons the soul of Michael Hunt, with a questionable fixation upon the role of racial hierarchy in the making of China policy in Washington. Zhang Junbo and Yao Yunzhu’s chapter on differences between Chinese and Western strategic cultures is intriguing as a depiction of a Chinese perception, but as historical analysis is somewhat less convincing. The authors contrast Chinese concern with the concept of dao, moral rectitude, and strategem with western preoccupation with ‘material’ rather than ‘human’ factors in war. Zhang and Yao’s reading of western strategic history does not seem to have included Machiavellian virtù, the traditions of just war and ius ad bellum–or more to the point, the Trojan horse.

The assertion that China is a great power occurs repeatedly in the volume, but only Zhao, in chapter 8, comes close to putting forward a justification or definition for the claim: and his suggestion is that China’s great power status was contingent upon Cold War bipolarity. Also, given Zhao’s allowance that Chinese pragmatism collapses under foreign demands triggering historical sensitivities, is this true pragmatism, then? This is especially the case as the more important security or human-rights issues for both China and the West are ones involving precisely such historical sensitivities – Taiwan, Tibet, and the treatment of Chinese dissidents.

It in no way detracts from Dr Zhao’s achievement to note more extensive use of an English-language proofreader might have spared readers the distraction of such eclecticisms as ‘neo-conservatists’ and ‘prudential foreign policy’. Other readers might find themselves instead distracted by the volume’s use of ‘1989 events’ instead of Tian'anmen Square, as well as the inverted commas surrounding, e.g., ‘human rights’. Nonetheless, Zhao has here assembled an impressive collection of contributions, especially on Chinese nationalism, regional relationships, and prospects for adopting the norms of international society. This volume will provide a useful supplement to other edited works which have built on similar terrain, such as Thomas W. Robinson and David Shambaugh’s Chinese Foreign Policy (Oxford, 1994).

Patrick Belton is a researcher at Oxford University, and serves as president of a foreign policy think tank and society of foreign policy professionals.