Contest for the Indo-Pacific: why China won't map the future (Book review)

Abstract

In a little over a decade, the People’s Republic of China has been transformed from the factory of the world into something quite different. It has become markedly more ambitious and assertive, but also more prickly and prone to take offence. It has ceased to be a rule-taker and grown adept at using various instruments, including international institutions, to further its interests. It is looking to reshape its immediate periphery and areas far beyond it with a combination of trade and investment, on the one hand, and political influence and interference, on the other. And it is changing our region, as its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its appetite for resources and markets reconnect China overland into the Middle East and Europe, and by sea, through Southeast Asia into the Indian Ocean and beyond.