Hoo Tiang Boon provides a careful interpretation of my book. Indeed, our research is complementary in important respects. Where I use Chinese cases to develop a theory of status signaling in IR, Hoo provides an empirically rich analysis of China’s emerging identity. He focuses on China’s great power identity, and I add China’s developing country status to the analysis of that nation.

Hoo’s questions focus on the empirical limitations of my book. I want to emphasize that my main purpose was theory building, not empirical testing. Drawing on ideas from various disciplines, I tried to develop a new theoretical framework of status signaling in international relations. The empirical chapters on China merely aim to illustrate different theoretical mechanisms within the framework of that overarching model. Focusing on the “why and how questions” of status signaling, my theoretical arguments could be applied in an endless number of cases, either within the Chinese context or in that of other countries. Elsewhere, I have analyzed the status signaling of other emerging powers (Xiaoyu Pu, “Ambivalent Accommodation: Status Signaling of a Rising India and China’s Response,” International Affairs 93[1] 2017). As pointed out by Hoo, China’s role in the Belt Road Initiative and global climate change also may be driven by status signaling. Given the limited space, I did not examine those cases in depth.

Regarding the coercive and assertive faces of China’s foreign policy, I briefly discuss those as potential “shadow cases.” My purpose is to compare those two aspects of Chinese foreign policy with my main propositions of conspicuous giving and strategic spinning. By comparing multiple different aspects of the cases under consideration, I am able to analyze the competing logics in China’s foreign policy. Given that the coercive and assertive elements were not my principal analytical focus, however, I did not examine them in detail.

Regarding signaling higher or lower status to domestic and international audiences, I aimed to provide an analysis of China’s general tendencies. China tends to send a reassuring message as a developing country to international audiences, while also highlighting its high status for domestic consumption. But general tendencies do not mean that China always acts this way. For instance, China sometimes emphasizes great power status in front of US audiences when it seeks to build “new great power relations” with the United States. I agree with Hoo that great power status is not the only factor that gives China privilege; sometimes its developing country status might also bring additional privileges to China in multilateral contexts such as the World Trade Organization.

While recognizing “status over-recognition” as a refreshing take on status politics in IR, Hoo suggests that China’s pursuit of a lower status might be temporary in nature. That raises an interesting question: What might be China’s ideal position on the global stage? Although Chinese elites and the general public surely want to make China great again, Chinese officials have never used the term “superpower” to describe their country’s current or future status. It is still unclear when and how Chinese officials might give up China’s self-identity as a developing country. Ultimately Hoo and I may be in fundamental agreement: China’s identity will remain contested both domestically and internationally for the foreseeable future.