Rising Power, Limited Influence (PDF)

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China's resurgence has spawned anxieties about an impending revision of the Liberal International Order. Drawing on case studies of Chinese investments across Europe, the contributors to this volume investigate the ways in which China translates its growing resources into effective influence, with varying degrees of success. They find that influence is most effectively achieved by harnessing the agency of states and societies in Europe towards China's preferences. Fragmented and messy rather than unified and coherent, these preferences comprise an amalgam of domestic, regional, and international considerations rather than aimed at revising world order. Nevertheless, as the contributors to this volume demonstrate, the interaction of European agency and Chinese preferences could have a variety of unintended consequences that range from straining the Liberal International Order to strengthening it.

Against narratives that foreground inevitable conflict or assured cooperation, Rising Power, Limited Influence innovates a dynamic framework to understand the granular ways in which states and societies in Europe interact with state and society in China to (re-)shape the Liberal International Order. Its contribution is three-fold. Conceptually, it offers a relational definition of power that pinpoints attention to the ways in which China translates its growing investments in Europe towards influencing the preferences of host countries. Empirically, it outlines the different modalities through which China harnesses the agency of European countries towards its own (fragmented) preferences. Theoretically, the book introduces a dynamic framework to understand the interaction between state-society relations in China with state-society relations in European countries to comprehensively appreciate the extent, limits, and modalities of resurgent China's global influence.