Regional Relations and the Future of China’s Foreign Policy Review by Brandon K. Yoder Department of Political Science, Old Dominion University China’s Regional Relations: Evolving Foreign Policy Dynamics. By Mark Beeson and Fujian Li. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2014. 254 pp., $59.95 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-1-626-37040-1). At the outset of China’s Regional Relations, Mark Beeson and Fujian Li pose the following question: Will a rising China become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system, or will it challenge the US-led international order as it grows more powerful? The book thus contributes to the massive literature on the implications of China’s rise. Yet, although the question is far from novel, the authors adopt an innovative approach for addressing it. China’s current relations with countries in neighboring regions, they argue, are particularly informative of its future foreign policies. Because China’s growing power and influence will first be manifested in relations with its neighbors, China’s regional relations should yield insights into its likely future behavior in other contexts as it becomes more powerful. Furthermore, because China is a member of several distinct and heter- ogeneous regions, explaining variation in its foreign policies across these regions should help identify factors that will affect China’s foreign policies in future con- texts. Although many other works have examined China’s regional relations, few have done so in the systematic manner that Beeson and Li adopt. The authors examine China’s relations in five neighboring subregions of Asia: the Asia-Paci- fic, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Central/South Asia, and Australia. While others have examined China’s bilateral relations with individual neighbors (for example, Goldstein 2005; Ross 2006; Swaine 2011) or with one subregion in iso- lation (for example, Goh 2007; Johnston 2008), Beeson and Li view regions holistically, as imagined communities of states that vary in their degrees of eco- nomic interdependence, institutional integration, and cultural/normative cohe- sion. This variation in regional context, in turn, shapes China’s foreign policies beyond the nature of individual bilateral relationships. Beeson and Li never explicitly identify a coherent, deductive framework that explains variation in China’s foreign policies generally across these subregions, and instead, limit themselves to descriptive analysis with ad hoc references to vari- ous theoretical lenses. This is strange since a careful reading of their cases reveals a distinct overarching argument: The authors characterize China’s grand strategy as one of “peaceful rise,” which involves reassuring neighbors of its benign intentions, and fostering economic cooperation and institutional integra- tion to sustain China’s growth and increase its political influence. As a rising state that needs economic growth and enhanced international status to maintain domestic stability, the benefits of economic interdependence and institutional- ized cooperation compel China to adopt cooperative foreign policies toward its regional neighbors and the United States. Yet, as others have noted, Chinese pol- icymakers face a powerful countervailing incentive: The combination of domestic nationalism and the Chinese Communist Party’s tenuous legitimacy propels Yoder, Brandon K. (2014) Regional Relations and the Future of China’s Foreign Policy. International Studies Review, doi: 10.1111/misr.12177 © 2014 International Studies Association International Studies Review (2014) 16, 702–704