In today’s academic and policy debates, so-called rising powers are largely considered with suspicion. We tend to assume that their rise will bring instability, if not outright conflict in the form of war to the international order as we know it. Realist international relations (IR) theories, in particular power transition theory (PTT), tell us that “the danger of a systemic war increases when a revisionist rising power overtakes or reaches parity with the incumbent hegemon. It claims that such a war is caused by this upstart’s revisionist agenda to challenge the hegemon’s global dominance and to overturn the international order that this hegemon allegedly supports and defends” (p. 9). The most prominently discussed question in this context is what these assumptions mean for the United States, a rising China, and the so-called liberal international order. Are the United States and China bound to fight a war, and thus unable to avoid what is commonly dubbed “Thucydides’s trap”?

Steve Chan, Huiyun Feng, Kai He, and Weixing Hu—the authors of Contesting Revisionism—caution us to think twice before relying on the conventional IR wisdoms mentioned previously for answering that question. Chan et al. show that there are several problems with our theories and conceptualizations, both when it comes to the notions of revisionism and order (chapts. 1 and 3), as well as their application (chapt. 2). The authors do not stop there, but also exemplify their own understanding and approach by presenting the results of empirical case studies focusing on the United States and China (chapt. 4). They conclude (chapt. 5) with policy recommendations that they believe would enhance international stability and diminish tension in Sino-American relations.

Based on their assessment of existing scholarship, which covers older and established as well as more recent work, Chan et al. identify the main problems as how we think about the origins of revisionism, how we define the term, and whom we ascribe it to, for what reasons, and in what way. Based on an understanding of power as material capabilities and of a rising power as exhibiting growth in these capabilities, conventional wisdom assumes that material growth “automatically” translates into a motivation to revise the existing order. This basic assumption, it seems, stands at the core of our scholarly concerns and “fears” about rising powers. The authors argue that this is problematic for several reasons.

First, the interstate distribution of power/material capabilities alone cannot tell us why states behave in certain ways and in the variety of ways they do (p. 2). In other words, rising power and revisionist motivations or intentions are not the same (pp. 11, 14), and instead of ascribing the same intention to all rising powers across the board, we have to infer intentions from actual behavior. We should thus not think of revisionism as a fixed attribute of a rising power (p. 9).

Second, the interstate distribution of material capabilities does not equal international order, and order and the interests of the hegemon are not inevitably mutually conducive (p. 5). A power transition and an order transition are thus not necessarily the same thing (pp. 14, 19), and conceptually failing to separate them from each other means interpreting every dispute a rising power might have with the hegemon as a challenge to the existing order.

Third, one needs to differentiate between the intention to change one’s position in the order and changing the order (p. 17), only the latter amounts to revisionism (p. 18). Accordingly, Chan et al. define revisionism as a motivation stemming from “some serious discontent with the prevailing rules, norms and institutions of the existing international order. This discontent, however, does not necessarily suggest a desire to overthrow the existing order entirely or an intention to resort to military means in this effort (‘hard revisionism’). Revisionist states may pursue non-military means to alter the existing order or some parts of this order (‘soft revisionism’)” (p. 22; emphases added). From this it follows that considering revisionism and its supposed counterpart “status quo” orientation as binary either/or categories is both unhelpful and empirically inaccurate (p. 5).

If we cannot infer revisionism from material growth, and if all rising powers are not revisionist, where does revisionism come from and how do we know for whom to watch out? These questions are addressed in chapter 2, which is about the origins and evolution of revisionist states. The focus lies on both sources of revisionism, and conditions enabling or disabling revisionist policies (p. 32). The chapter shows that revisionism is “a product from both foreign and domestic conditions” (p. 69), and that it matters how the international community and especially the hegemon meet the demands of the rising state. At the same time, Chan et al. emphasize that not only rising states may develop revisionist motivations and policies but also that this can apply to the (relatively) declining hegemon. In fact, they ask, should we not expect the rising power to continue sustaining the order that enables its rise, while the declining power might want to change it to preserve its power (pp. 73, 163)? Chapter 5 draws from prospect theory to sustain this possibility. Chapter 3 looks at how China and the United States have related to the norms and rules-based international order through three different types of indicators: (1) respect for and observation of basic norms, (2) participation in international organizations and observation of international treaty obligations, and (3) interaction and socialization with other countries in international dealings (p. 79). According to these, China over time has become less and the United States more revisionist. Chapter 4 zooms in on concrete strategies a revisionist state might take according to what the authors define as hard and soft revisionism. It shows that “hard revisionism,” that is resorting to military means, neither has nor is expected to be a go-to strategy, but that actors (e.g., as China has shown) are more likely to resort to issue specific “soft revisionism” centering on different kinds of institutional behavior ranging from reform to obstruction (pp. 117, 162).

The main strength of the book lies in the thorough discussion and criticism of conventional IR wisdom on rising powers both when it comes to conceptual and empirical work. This is especially important as it challenges the foundations of our current understandings and judgements in the US–China case. Another main strength is focusing not only on the rising power but also on how it is met by the hegemon and the international community (here Chan et al. link to, e.g., Stacy Goddard’s recent work on revisionism), thus contributing to a social and relational understanding of revisionism.

As with every book, there are also limitations. While emphasizing the importance of analysing intentions and motivations (i.e., ideational factors) instead of just inferring them from material capabilities, Chan et al. unfortunately stop short of explicitly problematizing the dominant materialist understanding of power in the theories they criticize. They do not, for instance, engage with Manjari Chatterjee Miller’s highly relevant work in this regard (her recent book on rising powers was published only in 2021, but there are older available articles, such as “The Role of Beliefs in Identifying Rising Powers,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 9(2), 2016).

While the authors thoroughly discuss the use and misuse of historical cases in previous scholarship, they at times seem to be less accurate when drawing examples from more recent rising/declining power behavior, such as Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and China’s aspirations toward reunification with Taiwan (p. 44). They also write that “norm-based international order includes mutual recognition by the great powers of their respective spheres of influence” (p. 80), which seems like an accurate description of the past, but rather questionable today, especially considering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Part of the data for studying “behavioural and measurement indicators” for revisionist tendencies (table 3.1) covers the period up to 2020. However, at times it remains slightly unclear why their assessment of US and Chinese behavior does not focus more on more recent developments in China. While Chan et al. do often discuss the highly problematic behavior of the Trump administration, they seem to shed comparatively less light on China under Xi Jinping in this regard. For example, they write that US–China relations were more cordial in the 1970s and 1980s than today, even though “the government in Beijing has become less authoritarian and Chinese society has become more open since that time” (p. 67). However, “today’s” readers of course see and would like to know more about the meaning of China again becoming more authoritarian and less open during Xi’s presidency.

Overall, and despite these criticisms, this book remains an important and necessary read for scholars interested in relations between so-called established and rising powers—such as the United States and China. It invites us to question conventional wisdoms and the subsequent—at times rather simplistic and alarmist—narratives about rising powers as “troublemakers,” and the purported likelihood of (armed) conflict between China and the United States being almost inevitable. Acknowledging that the revisionist motivations of both a rising and a potentially declining power depend on how the demands resulting from the motivations on both sides are met, Chan et al.’s policy recommendations call for mutual caution and reassurance to avoid a conflict caused by self-fulfilling prophesies.