Routledge Handbook on Global China

This innovative Routledge Handbook sheds light on the complex and transformative nature of Global China, prompting a re- evaluation of existing theories on global and regional dynamics. It encourages theoretical innovation, methodological reflection and analytical transformation, providing new avenues for critical engagement with China?s global interactions. The chapters propose three key commitments for the study of Global China: Advocating for diverse viewpoints and non- binary frameworks, employing nuanced analysis to understand Beijing?s transnational relations and utilizing alternative methodological approaches to explore different trajectories for China in international affairs.

The Handbook also identifies and avoids epistemic traps that hinder the understanding of Global China, such as othering and strategic narcissism. It suggests five analytical frameworks related to relationality, global capitalist processes, language and discourse power, planetary- scale modernization and experimentalism to guide future research. By adopting these frameworks, researchers can gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted factors shaping Global China within the broader global context of cooperation, competition and crisis.

"In midst of populist bestsellers, nuanced analysis of China's rapidly transforming relations with the rest of world have received but limited attention. This explains the USP of this handbook that outlines a novel framework to study China devoid of conventional conceptual stereotypes and biases.

The book aptly sheds light on China in a world growing ever more complex; shaping and being shaped by multiple novel actors and agencies, becoming less and less understandable through the prism of Western-centric perspectives.

Students, academics, experts and practitioners studying the influence of actors especially from the Global South will appreciate the depth and sophistication of the analytical tools and theoretical lenses of research that Global China showcases in various chapters of this path-breaking study."

Swaran Singh, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

"The Routledge Handbook on Global China charts a refreshingly new course in China studies that is both audacious and solidly grounded in academic research. Departing from the ontological and epistemological traps where China is often treated as a monolithic other and the study of China increasingly framed in great-power competition, this pathbreaking volume seeks to unpack the complexity of China as it engages the outside world both globally and regionally, affecting the latter's diplomatic, economic, and security dynamics as much as being affected by external opportunities and constraints. It calls for a non-binary, nuanced, and comprehensive understanding of China that is at once global in its reach and impact, and local in its perspectives steeped in history, culture and a sense of exceptionalism. The complexity of Global China defies simplicity in its characterization and interpretation. Indeed, the China scholarship can be advanced only if current debates and analyses go beyond conventional frameworks of great-power rivalry, peak China, or China to be socialized, to engage in ontological and epistemological conversations that explore, test, compete, and generate knowledge of Global China and its impacts at the systemic and local levels. The handbook will be timely addition to the existing literature and an important guide for both scholars and analysts at a time of transformational changes in international relations."

Jingdong Yuan, Senior Researcher and Director of the SIPRI China and Asia Security Programme, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

"I have rarely felt inspired to read, let alone use, an academic Handbook on anything - this volume on Global China is the one exception. The approach, to explicitly build non-binary frameworks in order to envision different future trajectories for China in international affairs, is inspired. Whether readers are seeking something thoughtful, something useful, something visionary, or something applicable, they will find inspiration in these pages. Ten out of ten, will read again."

Astrid H. M. Nordin, Chair of Chinese International Relations, Lau China Institute, King?s College London