Asia's Quest for Balance: China's Rise and Balancing in the Indo-Pacific.

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Date: 01 April 2019
• Author: Rolfe, Jim

Asia's Quest for Balance: China's Rise and Balancing in the Indo-Pacific. Edited by Jeff M. Smith. Lanham, Maryland: Rowraan and Littlefield, 2018. Hardcover: 323pp.

Explaining China, its role in the region and the world, and the appropriate responses to its rising power, has been a cottage industry for scholars for at least the last three or four decades. This book adds to the genre, and does so usefully in part but less so in others.

This is really two books in one. The first part is a discussion of balancing as a concept, and its relationship to the rise of China and the effects of that rise on the region. The second part is a series of country case-study chapters that explain the approach towards China taken by the selected countries in terms of their balancing behaviour. The second part is stronger and more interesting than the first, although the absence of chapters on South Korea and Thailand is a serious shortcoming. The other major regional powers--India, Japan and Australia--are included, along with most Southeast Asian countries. The United States is present implicitly throughout, and explicitly as a section within each of the country chapters.

The country chapters are very useful, largely because the editor has assembled a very strong team of contributors. Each chapter uses a common...