Feng Zhang, Chinese Hegemony: Grand Strategy and International Institutions in East Asian History

Abstract

Feng Zhang is a Fellow in the Department of International Relations in the Australian National University’s School of International, Political and Strategic Studies, College of Asia and the Pacific. His latest work, Chinese Hegemony: Grand Strategy and International Institutions in East Asian History, aims at achieving three main goals. The first is to go beyond the traditional description of the hierarchical system centered on imperial China. Second, Zhang wants to show the expressive side of China’s strategy, determined by the great influence of Confucianism over Chinese politics in that time. Finally, Zhang argues that the Chinese tribute system was far from representative of the entire East Asian international society. Moreover, it was a very fluid system of relations that countries could join or leave at different moments. In the first part of the book, Zhang outlines the theoretical relational framework he builds to identify the main variables, or the “fundamental institutions of Chinese hegemony”, that influenced the interaction between China and Japan, Korea and Mongolia. After describing how those relations changed over time, he provides a more detailed discussion of the above-mentioned variables. The final part of the book revolves around the lessons that can be drawn from the past to understand contemporary China’s rise and behavior in international relations. Yet, it is important to point out that this is not a simple historical comparison. Rather, the final discussion on today’s China is based on the application of the theoretical framework built and used to analyze the three cases cited above.