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The books under review both deal with interesting topics in an intelligent manner. They are similar in that they highlight the importance of individuals in foreign policy decision making, and both study individuals with some methodological rigor, chiefly using the examination of operational codes to explain the beliefs and perceptions of individuals.
In Chinese Strategic Culture and Foreign Policy Decision-Making, Huiyun Feng seeks to understand Chinese decision making in order to explore the broader question of the extent to which a rising China and the United States may engage in conflict in the future. The author conducts a historical analysis of the roots of Chinese strategic thinking during three major wars--the Korean War (1950-53); the Sino-Indian War (1962); and the Sino-Vietnamese War (1979)--and discovers that China followed the norms of a defensive strategic culture. Extrapolating from this analysis, the author argues that China is not an aggressive state, bent on dominating others and seeking global primacy. It is not, in theoretical terms, a state that behaves as threateningly as offensive realists would predict. In essence, offensive realism assumes that states react to anarchy in an aggressive manner, seeking to enhance their power and control over others. This creates a dynamic in which conflict is hard to avoid and cooperation is hard to achieve. By contrast, defensive realism assumes that states react to anarchy by taking actions to defend their interests, eschewing more aggressive foreign policy behavior. This creates a dynamic wherein cooperation, while still difficult to achieve, is possible.
The argument of the book--that Chinese decision makers have followed the norms of a defensive strategic culture--is not trivial. First, it challenges the theoretical view of offensive realists. Thus, it adds to the debate between offensive and defensive realists by offering an empirically-based challenge to the notion that states act in line with offensive realism. Second, scholars and policymakers are very interested in how a rising China will behave in world politics. Some scholars even predict a coming war between China and the United States--the type of predictions that helped animate this book. Yet, Feng's conclusion suggests that all these concerns are exaggerated and that Chinese leaders are shaped by a defensive strategic culture and actually display a preference for...