Description:
Major IR theories, which stress that actors will inevitably only seek to enhance their own interests, tend to contrive binaries of self and other and 'inside' and 'outside'. By contrast, this book recognizes the general need of all to relate, which they do through various imagined resemblances between them.
Review Quotes:
"The authors generate a novel "balance of relationships" theory of international relations grounded in practice, self-restraint and bilaterality. BoR should help US decision makers better understand their Chinese counterparts, but the theory is also usefully presented as a general resource available to all states that choose to adopt a relational foreign policy." - Cameron G. Thies, Arizona State University, USA
"This book courageously establishes an innovative theory that is conceptually and culturally different from existing Western theories of international relations. It also provides appealing reinterpretations of the relationships between China and the United States and between mainland China and Taiwan." - Wang Jisi, Peking University, China
"The temptation when looking beyond "Western IR theory" is to code the potential contributions of thought that is grounded in experiences outside of Western Europe and North America in terms already familiar to the mainstream: as a new "ism," as support for one or another existing school of IR thought, or as a completely distinct way of thinking about international affairs that serves as a comprehensive rival. This book avoids that temptation, producing instead a detailed engagement with dominant Anglophone IR that is grounded in the Confucian heritage, foregrounding "improvised resemblance" as a foreign policy strategy that doesn't fit neatly of the existing categories that Anglophone IR thinking provides. The result is a bit disquieting, but for a profound purpose: to explore the tissues of resemblance and distinction between so-called "Chinese" and "Western" IR, and to perhaps afford us a better grasp of both." - Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, American University, USA