This book aims to study China's economic statecraft in the contemporary era in a comprehensive manner. It attempts to explore China's approaches to using its economic, trade, investment, and financial power for the pursuit of its political, security, and strategic interests at the regional and global levels. The volume addresses three major issue areas in particular. The first issue pertains to how Beijing has used its economic clout to protect what it perceives as its "core interests" in its external relations. Three cases are included: the Taiwan issue, human rights, and territorial dispute in the South China Sea. The second major area of inquiry focuses on how China has employed its economic power in its key bilateral relations, including relations with Japan, North Korea, the United States, and other states in the East Asian region. The third issue concerns China's economic statecraft in the global context. It addresses the impacts of China's economic power and policy on the transformation of the global financial structure, developments in Africa, the international intellectual property rights regime, and China's food security relations with the outside world.

In Chinese Economic Statecraft, William J. Norris introduces an innovative theory that pinpoints how states employ economic tools of national power to pursue their strategic objectives. Norris shows what Chinese economic statecraft is, how it works, and why it is more or less effective. Norris provides an accessible tool kit to help us better understand important economic developments in the People’s Republic of China. He links domestic Chinese political economy with the international ramifications of China’s economic power as a tool for realizing China’s strategic foreign policy interests. He presents a novel approach to studying economic statecraft that calls attention to the central challenge of how the state is (or is not) able to control and direct the behavior of economic actors. Norris identifies key causes of Chinese state control through tightly structured, substate and crossnational comparisons of business-government relations. These cases range across three important arenas of China’s grand strategy that prominently feature a strategic role for economics: China’s efforts to secure access to vital raw materials located abroad, Mainland relations toward Taiwan, and China’s sovereign wealth funds. Norris spent more than two years conducting field research in China and Taiwan during which he interviewed current and former government officials, academics, bankers, journalists, advisors, lawyers, and businesspeople. The ideas in this book are applicable beyond China and help us to understand how states exercise international economic power in the twenty-first century.

This book considers the triggers that may cause China to use economic coercion in bilateral state disputes. The literature reviewed shows that economic statecraft and coercion is a viable policy tool for shaping an opposing state's behavior and the degree to which a state holds an asymmetrical economic advantage influences its ability to wield this tool. China's rising power has made the study and understanding of the conditions under which China will utilize economic coercion an imperative as more states become vulnerable to it. China has already revealed that it is willing to shape state behavior through economic "carrots" and "sticks." As demonstrated by the case studies explored in this book, China uses economic coercion to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty and its understanding of the status quo. Where it holds an economically asymmetrical advantage, China has targeted specific sectors for coercion as a way to signal resolve. As Chinese economic power continues to rise relative to regional neighbors and the U.S., the feasibility of using economic coercion also increases, making the future employment of economic coercion likely wherever China perceives a threat to its interests that is cannot be solved with its increasing military might.

Fueled by its surging economic strength, China has been increasingly utilizing economic tools such as trade, foreign aid, foreign direct investment, and sanctions to pursue strategic and security interests on the world stage. This approach, known as economic statecraft, has thus far received mixed policy results and ambivalent reactions from the international community. This book presents a collection of global assessment of China's economic statecraft. The contributors to this volume answer three key questions: What are the challenges faced by China’s economic statecraft? Why is China sometimes able to achieve its foreign policy objectives via economic statecraft and sometimes not? How do foreign countries, particularly the targets of China’s economic statecraft, respond to China's strategies? This comprehensive study examines economic statecraft in the context of more than a dozen nations and international organizations across four continents, thus providing a truly global perspective.

Introduction -- Techniques of statecraft -- What is economic statecraft? -- Thinking about economic statecraft -- Economic statecraft in international thought -- Bargaining with economic statecraft -- National power and economic statecraft -- "Classic cases" reconsidered -- Foreign trade -- Foreign aid -- The legality and morality of economic statecraft -- Conclusion -- Afterword : economic statecraft : continuity and change / Ethan B. Kapstein.

This volume focuses on Chinese economic statecraft during the first decade of Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening-up policies, from 1978 to 1989. During these years, Chinese economic engagement with the external world was tentative and experimental, with long-term strategies still decidedly under development. Prominent topics covered are China’s efforts to steer an economic course tailored to and representing what Deng Xiaoping famously described as “socialism with Chinese characteristics”; China’s quest for advanced science and technology; China’s dealings with international economic institutions, especially the World Bank; China’s engagement with other powers, including Japan, the United States, the ASEAN nations, and Europe; and the role of non-governmental organizations, including foreign policy think tanks, exchange groups, and educational institutions, in developing Chinese economic thinking and methodology during this decade. Contributors also focus on how elements of the Chinese military turned to building China’s new economic infrastructure, and on Chinese efforts to break into foreign markets. The volume ends with an overview and reassessment of earlier findings on Chinese economic statecraft in these years, by one of the leading Chinese experts on the PRC’s international policy.

While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.