This well-organized and well-written compendium achieves its two main goals. One is to explore and examine the utility and importance of theories associated with middle powers and the impact of middle powers on contemporary international affairs. The volume does so by creating a theory of middle power behavior, examining how well the theory fits with the experience of eight middle powers and their dealings with rising China, and assessing the importance of that experience.
After the editors’ introduction, the second chapter in the book explains the middle power theory used in the volume and created by authors James Manicom and Jeffrey Reeves. Then follow two chapters dealing respectively with China’s and America’s attitudes and approaches to middle powers. Then come seven chapters providing case studies showing how eight middle powers (one chapter treats two countries) interact with rising China. The countries considered are Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand and Turkey. The case studies provide the basis for validating the middle power theory of Chapter 2, which is seen by the editors to have important and unappreciated influence in explaining the conduct of contemporary international relations that are seen to be dominated by the power transition posed by a rising China and a declining America.
A second goal of the volume is to assess how these eight middle powers have been influenced by China’s rise and how they in turn have influenced China’s rise. These case studies, like the chapters on China and the United States, are written by leading specialists. They are cogent, informative, and provide treatment and useful insights on Chinese relations with each of these states until one year prior to the book’s publication in 2014.
Against this background, the editors’ detailed conclusion makes a strong case for the importance of middle powers in contemporary world affairs focused on the China-U.S. perceived power shift. The book’s middle power theory and support for the theory seen in the case studies will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations seeking to judge the importance of middle powers in the ongoing active academic debate on influences in contemporary world affairs that the editors rightly judge tends to focus too narrowly on China and the United States. Meanwhile, scholars, students, and practitioners focused on China and world affairs will benefit from the book’s explanations of how and why leading middle powers and China have interacted in varying ways, having significant impacts on issues of regional and global importance.
While arguing for greater attention to the role of middle powers in world affairs amidst the perceived power shift between China and the United States, the findings of the volume also show the limitations of middle power influence. The U.S. chapter demonstrates why the concept of middle powers does not get much traction in U.S. policy discussion, even though the United States devotes attention to many of these countries for other reasons depending on various circumstances. The record of China devoting attention to middle powers as a separate category of countries warranting Chinese policy consideration seems somewhat stronger, but the conclusion is clear in noting that there is no evidence that China has changed any of its policies as a direct response to the behavior or influence of middle powers.
The middle power theory of the volume stresses the importance of such countries in three separate areas: 1) promoting security through peace initiatives and conflict mediation, 2) working against great power dominance and promoting multi-polarity in the evolving international system, and 3) supporting rules-building and international and regional institutions that enmesh the great powers and set boundaries for possible disruptive rivalry and assertiveness. It finds that middle powers today have unprecedented influence in shaping international institutions and providing international leadership on key policy issues. Special attention is devoted to their role in the G-20.
The book moves beyond a conventional view that foreign countries are attracted by economic opportunities of China’s rise but concerned by Chinese military build-up and strategic ambitions. In fact, it finds that the middle powers examined, while attracted by Chinese economic opportunities, are also strongly concerned with China exerting adverse pressure on them economically as well as using economic, security, and diplomatic leverage against their interests. At bottom, it finds the middle powers torn between the rewards and risks of engagement with China, as they give primacy to preserving their autonomy now and in the future. And it finds that the impact of China’s rise is predictably strongest in the nearby Asia-Pacific.
To guard against Chinese dominance or disruptive China-U.S. rivalry and friction prompted by China’s rise, the book shows middle powers fostering international and regional groups that constrain and socialize China as well as the United States. The middle powers favor close involvement of both China and the United States in rules based international agreements, organizations, and other frameworks that sustain stability so important to the development of the middle powers. They tend to hedge against the perceived adverse consequences or implications of China’s rise. The book shows middle power judging that hedging is preferable to bandwagoning with China or balancing against it as China’s long term intentions and capabilities remain uncertain in the view of the middle powers. The middle powers are also seen as wary of a close “G-2” type condominium between Washington and Beijing, which is judged to greatly reduce the influence and autonomy of middle powers in international affairs.
While middle powers have little direct impact on China’s policies, they are seen to shape the context in which China operates, particularly concerning new rules and institutions that have importance in contemporary Chinese international relations. And China is sensitive to the views of the middle powers as it crafts foreign initiatives seeking to advance its regional and global influence.
In sum, the volume makes a significant contribution in two ways. It assesses with rigor both systematically and theoretically the role of middle powers in the changing world order, and it provides important details and insights about China’s actual interchange with eight important countries. The latter interchange is very well assessed up to 2013 and provides numerous insights on the motives and impacts of maneuvers and hedging by various middle powers in dealing with intensifying U.S.-Chinese competition in regional and world affairs up to that time. Of course, tracking the latest developments in such moves is a focus of this reviewer and many other specialists trying to assess the impact of President Xi Jinping, who has turned out to be China’s most decisive and bold foreign policy leader since Mao Zedong. The book under review was published two years ago and so its limited treatment of Xi does not address his subsequent foreign policy importance.
