Having successfully celebrated its 60th birthday, the People’s Republic of China now embarks upon a new era of global influence, attention, and challenges. This book provides an insightful guide to the complex array of domestic and international forces shaping China’s foreign policy today. Grounded in rich descriptions and theoretically informed analyses, the contributors reveal how domestic actors and institutions are transforming China’s foreign policymaking, yielding important implications for Asia and the world. -- James Reilly, University of Sydney
This edited volume offers a comprehensive analysis of China's struggle as a rising power and at same time a developing country when it celebrated the sixtieth birthday of the People's Republic. It is a remarkable collection of research articles by a group of top scholars of Chinese foreign policy and makes a major contribution to help understand the complexity and fluidity of Chinese foreign relations and policy transition in the 21st century. -- Suisheng Zhao, University of Denver and editor of Journal of Contemporary China

“This volume brings together ten scholars in an effort to untangle the complexity of China’s foreign policy. Carlson and Ren establish the overarching theme of new perspectives on the study of Chinese foreign policy by including chapters that analyze China’s foreign relations from traditional as well as newer perspectives, and bringing together Chinese and Western scholarly perspectives.”

“The greatest challenges of an edited volume is establishing a coherent theme that ties all chapters together and ensuring an even quality across the chapters. Carlson and Ren establish the overarching theme of new perspectives on the study of Chinese foreign policy by including chapters that analyze China’s foreign relations from traditional as well as newer perspectives, and bringing together Chinese and Western scholarly perspectives. However, the quality of the scholarship and analysis is uneven and each chapter does not make an equal contribution to the volume as a “rebuke to any who would attempt to forward simplistic interpretations of China’s rise” and an attempt to call “attention to the remarkable complexity of China’s emerging international profile.”

Allen Carlson is associate professor of government at Cornell University.

Ren Xiao is director of the Center for Chinese Foreign Policy Studies at Fudan University, China.