Author's Response: China's Western Horizon as a Framework for Assessing China's Global Reach

I am grateful to Asia Policy for assembling such an excellent group of reviewers for this roundtable on China's Western Horizon. Engaging in discussion with experts of this caliber makes the labor of writing a book worthwhile, and I appreciate the evident time and care each took to craft a review. Generous in their praise, each reviewer also raised important questions and offered smart suggestions for an expanded research agenda.

I should add at the outset that I was delighted—and relieved—to see that China's Western Horizon successfully avoided burying its lede. Reviewers found the book's central argument compelling and amply supported by evidence gathered across the three main cases. In brief, local actors shape the context and consequences of China's activities across Eurasia. Yes, Beijing is "pushing" westward—economically, diplomatically, and militarily—to serve its increasingly ambitious global agenda, but China is also being "pulled" by regional leaders and interest groups who seek to advance their own aims. The interplay between this push and pull is often complicated, but appreciating these complications is necessary to anticipate political outcomes and, I argue, to shape an effective U.S. policy response. On balance, my research suggests that China's deepening involvement in Eurasia is likely to create new strategic headaches for the United States.

Reviewers were also united in suggesting that the book's analytical framework could be extended or deepened to assess other case studies in Eurasia and beyond. In many instances, such as Jonathan Fulton's comparison of Duqm and Gwadar, a reader can immediately grasp the potential utility of an even more comprehensive approach. I enthusiastically endorse these recommendations and read them as constructive ideas for a broader, long-term research agenda.

The challenge for framing additional case studies lies in judiciously weighing the balance of numerous factors, as the book attempts to do in its assessments of Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Iran. I can envision a collective research initiative in which a larger team of analysts would follow a similar methodology. Each case study would begin with an assessment of China's historical and contemporary ties to, and evolving interests in, the nation-state in question. This would be followed by a systematic assessment of each state's domestic political economy, with the goal of determining how evolving ties with China are likely to play into local political contests. Next, the analysis would extend to an assessment of how each state's relations with China affect its primary regional—and if necessary, global—geopolitical relationships. Finally, if intended for use by U.S. policymakers, the analysis would conclude by discussing how the developments would help or harm U.S. aims, both at the local or regional level and in the broader context of Washington's competition with Beijing.

At the very least, a research initiative of this sort would deliver a comprehensive political—as opposed to narrowly economic or sectoral—assessment of China's relationships across the world, and one that would extend beyond the question of "What does Beijing want?" to include the vitally important question of "What do other states want from China?" A systematic emphasis on the second question would help U.S. policymakers avoid seeing the world through a simplistic, China-centric lens that too easily obscures the ways that local actors create opportunities and obstacles for Chinese economic expansion, political influence, and military power projection. If tackled effectively, this collective research initiative would also accomplish at least four other purposes that partially eluded me in China's Western Horizon but that the reviewers correctly identified as opportunities for further study.

First, a collective research initiative would enable an additional level of analysis of the interconnections among regional states in the context of their dealings with China. For instance, as Tanvi Madan pointed out, it would be useful to consider how ties between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are likely to be affected by their independent relationships with China. Other triangular and cross-regional relationships, such as Russia-China-Iran or Russia-China-India, also merit special...