
A World Safe for Autocracy
And What It Means for the World
Weiss(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 1. November 2024
Book
Hardback
328 pages
978-0-19-760262-1 (ISBN)
Description
What does China actually want from its growing global power? Is conflict with the United States inevitable? What China Wants challenges the prevailing view that Beijing is driven by an unwavering ambition to displace American primacy and remake the world order. Drawing on decades of research and a wealth of primary sources, Jessica Chen Weiss argues that Chinese foreign policy is better understood through the lens of three core imperatives -- sovereignty, security, and development -- that are frequently in tension, producing unexpected shifts in behavior rather than a coherent grand strategy. The book takes readers inside the tradeoffs the Chinese government must navigate to explore how nationalist pressures, development imperatives, and deep insecurity over the Party's legitimacy shape the way the Chinese Communist Party governs at home and engages abroad. It examines the role of Taiwan, the flexibility of CCP ideology, Chinaâs influence in international institutions and in countries across the world, and its contested bid for global leadership -- showing in each case how the interplay of Beijing's core priorities creates far more room for maneuver than most analysts allow. Weiss argues that China is not a monolith, that ideology is not a driver of Chinese foreign policy, and that nationalism constrains the leadership as much as empowers it. Grasping this complexity is essential to understanding what China wants -- and what it can realistically achieve -- in the shifting global order. Avoiding conflict requires both Washington and Beijing to invest in credible assurances, address shared global challenges, and resist the temptation to treat competition as an end in itself.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Weight
5 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-760262-1 (9780197602621)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jessica Chen Weiss is the inaugural faculty director of the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF) and the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Profiled by the New Yorker and named one of Prospect Magazine's Top Thinkers for 2024, she served a year as a senior advisor to the U.S. State Department on a Council on Foreign Relations Fellowship. Her book Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations was described by the Financial Times as "an invaluable chronicle of how China, Japan and the US have handled charged diplomatic confrontations." Weiss is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis.