China's theory and practice of sovereignty is critical to any understanding of international relations today. This book offers a genealogy of the concept of sovereignty in China from the nation's nadir in the mid-nineteenth century to its rise as a regional or perhaps world power today. It throws light on two central questions: how the modern Chinese state held on to the vast frontier lands of the Qing Empire, and how its diplomats were finally able to fit China into the “Westphalian myth”—the story that legitimates the very real international order in which China now has real control over clear borders, domestic autonomy, and rights claims framed in the language of international law.

While Carrai wishes to avoid teleology and the reductive empire-to-nation story of modern China, a clear narrative arc emerges from her account. In sum, the universalist cosmology of the tianxia universal empire arguably possessed something like a notion of sovereignty but not one compatible with the West's still-new international order. Imperialism, after all, rested on the distinction between the civilized sovereign and the uncivilized non-sovereign. The construction of modern Chinese sovereignty thus depended on achieving and perhaps modifying the West's definition of civilization. “In less than a century, the Chinese imperial order had been replaced by one that confined fluid imperial frontiers within rigid sovereign borders and secularized the ultimate source of legitimation from sacred Heaven to the people” (p. 222).

First, the Chinese cosmology became somewhat secularized in the wake of the Opium Wars, as Chinese learned to adopt Western notions of “sovereignty” (zhuquan) instrumentally to preserve Chinese territory, including suzerain frontiers; Chinese nonetheless remained confident in China's moral position and even the tianxia vision. Second, after the shock of loss to Japan in 1895 and the rise of social Darwinism, the world became amoral on the one hand, but amenable to the language of rights, including the right of sovereignty on the other hand. Third, during the republican period between 1912 and 1949 Chinese diplomats further embraced international law, perceiving the critical importance of positioning China as one of the civilized nations. They successfully abrogated the unequal treaties and, positioning Tibet, Xinjiang, and other frontier zones as uncivilized, included them under the umbrella of Chinese sovereignty. Fourth, in the early Communist period of the 1950s, if I understand Carrai correctly, although proletarian internationalism would seem to have little scope for the concept of national sovereignty, China was in fact mostly committed to independence and coexistence. As before, sovereignty was a shield against imperialism, now conceived as the entire capitalist world. And fifth, since the 1990s, China has balanced a commitment to the doctrine of non-interference in other countries as the basis of sovereignty with participation in international organizations that impose obligations on their otherwise sovereign members. The World Trade Organization is the most obvious of these partial limits on national sovereignty.

Covering over a century of tumultuous change, Carrai presents a nuanced conceptual history to which the paragraph above does little justice. A tension that lasts throughout most of the period rests on a set of ironies (or hypocrisies). The Western powers not only taught China the modern concept of sovereignty, but simultaneously insisted on it (they did not colonize China) while denying China anything like full sovereignty. Chinese leaders, for their part, linked sovereignty to anti-imperialist struggle and national independence while denying the same to the peoples of Tibet, Xinjiang, and—to this day—Taiwan. Carrai rightly points out that both the premodern Chinese tianxia and modern Western international law made claims to universality and morality but in practice were anything but. If their clash resulted in remaking Chinese views more than Western ones, such may not continue to be the case in the future. It is not that the traditional tianxia will return, but along with some revival of the term, what Carrai calls China's consistently “pragmatic approach to sovereignty and international law” suggests that China will insist on a less Eurocentric conceptualization of sovereignty.

This is very much a story of political leaders, intellectuals, diplomats, and jurists, whom Carrai situates convincingly in legal theory and political reality. Yet exactly how they determined what was this “China” that claimed sovereignty is taken for granted rather than explained. To what extent was China defined by the foreign powers rather than Chinese, at least in the nineteenth century? Why was “the final locus of sovereignty [placed] in the people” (108), and who are the people? Exactly how did “fictional sovereignty” (useful phrase) over Tibet work out but the same type of claim to Korea fail? (Perhaps the concept of sovereignty was only tangential.) And what of pan-Asianism in the larger discourse of sovereignty? At times, Carrai seems to accept that modern international law is amoral, or at least less moral than premodern cosmologies, but this is a position that needs better grounding.

This work, erudite though it is, also suffers from some odd declarations. For example, “the emperor was in charge of both Heavenly and earthly affairs” (36). It is basically misleading to consider Kang Youwei a Darwinist (99). “The idea of self-determination drove the 1919 Paris Peace Conference after the First World War” (112). “Over the past thirty years, sovereignty, the principle of noninterference, and relations between state and individual have gradually transformed to favor individuals and their rights” (183)—maybe so, but I wonder. The title of Zhang Zhidong's treatise should be translated as Exhortation to Learning (82). Some of the romanization is inaccurate; particularly annoying are repeated references to the “Sino-Meji War” for the First Sino-Japanese (Meiji) War, and it is unfortunate that Cambridge University Press did not use a better qualified copy-editor.

Notwithstanding the quibbles above, this book should be read by historians, political scientists, and diplomats alike. Looking back over China's century of pursuing national sovereignty, Carrai rightly warns us not to try to match Chinese concepts exactly onto Western ones and that indeed imperial conceptions remain relevant.