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Beijing's Economic Statecraft during the Cold War, 1949-1991 . SHU GUANG ZHANG . Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press , 2014 xiv + 477 pp. $65.00; £42.00 ISBN 978-1-4214-1583-3
Book Reviews
The study of economic statecraft, the "use [of] economic instruments to pursue foreign policy goals" has been dominated by the study of economic sanctions and foreign aid from the perspective of the sender country, and the most commonly studied sender country in the Cold War period has been the United States. Shu Guang Zhang of Macau University of Science and Technology has written a detailed history of China's economic statecraft during the Cold War, notably its use of aid, trade and sanctions to achieve its goals. What makes this book particularly noteworthy is Zhang's use of relatively newly available archival materials from Chinese sources including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs covering the period 1949-65, as well as provincial-level archives.
The book begins with a study of China's efforts to evade the consequences of the US economic embargo on the new Communist government in 1949 which was then tightened further during the Korean War. Chapters two to five then cover China's aid relations during the Cold War, both as a recipient of Soviet aid and as a dispenser of...