(Book Review) JEAS | Cambridge | China’s Wars: The Politics and Diplomacy Behind Its Military Coercion| Amb Vijay Gokhale
The early scholarship on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has largely focused on China’s historical experiences of foreign aggression and its feeling of victimhood as explanations for expansionist tendencies on its periphery (Whiting Reference Whiting1975). However, with the emergence of new primary sources at the turn of the century, alternative regionalist voices are now challenging these established claims. Ambassador Vijay Gokhale’s latest book, China’s Wars: The Politics and Diplomacy Behind Its Military Coercion, is one such contribution that empirically challenges established beliefs about China and offers much-needed regionalist perspectives on Chinese coercion around its periphery. It not only provides meticulous documentation of China’s conflicts while simultaneously representing a new, emerging school of thought in China studies in India, but, without being overly appreciative or dismissive of China, it also seeks to understand Beijing on its own terms. It grounds its analysis in Chinese sources, unlike in the past, when there was heavy reliance on Western scholarship.
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