How do small powers engage with China in the Chinese neighbourhood? China and Its Small Neighbors, by Sung Chull Kim, provides a novel explanation with an emphasis on the political implications of economic asymmetry between China and its small neighbours. On the one hand, economic asymmetry has made China's small neighbours vulnerable in terms of foreign policy, and small powers always adopt hedge-on and hedge-against strategies to mitigate pertinent political risks. On the other hand, different degrees of vulnerability bring about different patterns of hedging strategies. Cambodia and North Korea choose to align with China, but Vietnam, Myanmar, Uzbekistan and Mongolia adopt more balanced strategies to seek partnerships with both China and other extra-regional great powers, particularly the United States. Kim presents a timely analysis on how small powers in three subregions of Asia (Northeast Asia, Central Asia and Southeast Asia) manage their relationships with China in amid the shifts in US–China power balance.
Kim makes three contributions to the study of asymmetric relationships and Chinese regional diplomacy. First, he examines a research question with both theoretical and policy significance. His original definition of hedging strategies not only reveals a crucial trade-off between hedging on economic benefit and hedging against political risk, but also provides a typology of hedging strategies. Second, he advances original arguments on a state's vulnerability to coercion in terms of three factors: a small power's concentration of trade; the lack of transparency within the small power's domestic politics; and the small power's reliance on bilateral aid offered by a powerful neighbour. These discussions enable us to understand better how economic asymmetry between a small power and a great power benefits the great power's political interests. Finally, Kim utilizes a regional approach to develop a balanced theoretical framework: he defines China and Russia as regional great powers while classifying the US, Japan and South Korea as extra-regional powers. Kim's approach centres on Chinese economic strength over small neighbours and, therefore, suits his objective of explaining small powers’ strategies toward a great power in the shadow of economic asymmetry.
It is undeniable that Kim provides incisive guidance on small powers’ strategic choices in the Chinese neighbourhood. He not only joins a recent wave of academic interest in asymmetric relationships in Asia, but also provokes enormous interest for further discussions in the field.
First, Kim's book would further benefit from extended discussions of the four types of hedging strategies from a theoretical perspective. According to Kim, hedging strategies include typical hedging (by Myanmar and Uzbekistan), multidimensional hedging (by Mongolia), mixed hedging (by Vietnam) and alignment (by Cambodia and North Korea). These six cases support empirical discussions of the four types, but the first three types overlap to a certain extent. Moreover, the book would ideally include further analysis of alignment. As Glenn Snyder argues in his pathbreaking work Alliance Politics (Cornell University Press, 1997), alignment amounts to a set of mutual expectations between two or more states that they will have each other's support in disputes or wars with other states. However, Kim raises the exception of Cambodia, which accepts neither mutual defence pacts with foreign countries nor foreign military bases on its territories. Therefore, Cambodia's alignment with China would require further elaboration.
Second, Kim should make a more explicit distinction between the economic and political incentives behind China's trade and investment initiatives. Kim focuses on the political implications of economic interdependence, which undoubtedly has been a crucial part of a story of China's economic statecraft. That being said, it is necessary to identify the economic motivations behind China's foreign economic relations. Foreign trade has been a pillar of China's economic growth for more than four decades, meaning the imposition of economic sanctions – a political signal – could harm China's reform and opening-up programme. Chinese investment would also need to take into consideration Chinese investment agencies’ (including state-owned agencies) profit rates. Small powers also understand these concerns. Therefore, it would be interesting and informative if the author could discuss how the distinction between political and economic concerns on the Chinese side shape small powers’ hedging-on or hedging-against strategies toward China.
Finally, Kim's book could be further improved by including a case study in South Asia to test the validity of his theories. Kim convincingly points out that small powers exist in the four subregions of Northeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, and he also provides excellent analysis of six small powers’ hedging strategies toward China. These six cases, however, do not include any small power in South Asia. This omission leads to two pertinent questions. First, could Kim's theoretical framework be applied to India's hedging strategies in terms of Sino-Indian asymmetry? Second, other small powers in South Asia (e.g. Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh) need to consider asymmetries vis-à-vis India and China. Would Kim's theoretical framework then be able to explain Pakistan's hedging strategies, such as in terms of Indian–Pakistan or China–Pakistan asymmetry?
Overall, China and Its Small Neighbors highlights China's asymmetric relationships with its Asian neighbours and extends the ever-increasing scholarly links between studies of asymmetric relationships and Chinese regional diplomacy. It addresses principal theoretical questions of policy significance and bridges the gap between theory and practice in Chinese foreign policy.
