In this book, Scott Kastner, Margaret Pearson, and Chad Rector explore a topic that is not only of intellectual significance, but also of practical importance. Specifically, they address “when a rising state like China will seek to revise or undermine existing rules, when it will accept them, and when it will actively invest in them” (p. 5).

In taking up these questions, the authors focus on second-order cooperation, namely the idea that “states must choose which efforts to make on behalf of the regime itself” (p. 13). Defending a regime is costly. States that do so also have to face the second-order free-riding problem. Knowing this, a rising state will only expend such effort when they are certain that the benefits of supporting an existing regime outweigh the costs. The authors identify two key factors that affect a rising state’s calculus of whether to support second-order cooperation: outside options and perceived indispensability by established powers (p. 37). Poor outside options prompt an emerging power to devote resources to maintaining existing regimes. Good outside options reduce the incentive to do so. In the meantime, when a rising power believes that an established power tends to see its role as indispensable to maintaining an existing regime, it will play a “hold-up” strategy to extract concessions from that established power.

However, the authors do not stop there: they go on to add dynamism to this theory. Because international institutions are costly to build and change, rising powers always have incentives to invest in enhancing their outside options, especially when they are certain that established powers see them as indispensable (p. 39). In other words, the rising powers do not see it as in their best interest to abandon the existing regimes in their entirety to pursue new ones. As a result, their investment in outside options serves to wring more concessions from existing powers. Thus investing more in outside options will indeed give more leverage to rising powers, which allows them to delay commitment to second-order cooperation in the future.

The authors then test their theory against four carefully selected cases across issue areas: order in central Asia, nuclear nonproliferation, global financial governance, and climate change negotiations. In the case of stability in central Asia, they argue that China has few outside options but high stakes—preventing the spread of terrorism into Xinjiang and its increased need for energy from the region (p. 83)—owing to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russia under Putin cannot be relied on to provide an inclusive order that accommodates Beijing’s interests (p. 99). Therefore, China decided to invest in building a new organization—the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001—in which it has played a central role since. However, SCO is not an ambitious organization, because it lacks strong institutionalization and has a weak record of “facilitating regional security and economic cooperation” (p. 105). But this weakness should be attributed to competing interests within the organization and the fear of China’s dominance in the region (pp. 106, 108). The authors foresee that the Silk Road and Economic Belt (BRI) initiative that began in 2013 will increase China’s outside options and perceived indispensability in the eyes of regional stakeholders (pp. 111–12).

When it comes to nuclear nonproliferation in North Korea, the authors in general show that when China’s outside options are strong—when there are no perceived security threats from its neighbors—China merely accepts the regime benefits of nonproliferation, free-riding on US efforts (p. 125). In addition, the relatively effective regime created by Washington rarely views Beijing as indispensable to its sustainability and functioning. Only nuclear crises that worsen Beijing’s outside options, as in 2003, incentivize China to invest more in institutional solutions to such crises, such as organizing the Six-Party Talks (p. 133). However, during the Obama years, the security threat to China from North Korea lessened, and China thus became passive once again (pp. 136–38).

In the chapter on global financial governance, the authors explore two cases: IMF vote share and the inclusion of the Renminbi (RMB) in the Special Drawing Right (SDR) basket of currencies. In both cases, China’s perceived indispensability to the sustainability of the IMF-centered financial system gave it what it long coveted: both an expanded vote share, which makes China the third-largest holder of vote shares in the IMF (pp. 159–60), and the addition of RMB to the SDR basket, which further increases the internationalization of RMB (p. 167). Before the mid-2000s, China merely abided by the rules set by the three major economic international institutions (p. 151). After that, China became more active in investing in alternative institutions to compete with the authority of the IMF, such as founding the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) through the ASEAN Plus Three (the 10 ASEAN countries plus China, Japan, and South Korea) and becoming involved in the BRIC forum (p. 155). In addition, China also pursues the global usability of RMB: it “opened several RMB bond markets (offshore and onshore),” “encouraged central banks to invest in its currency bonds,” and “negotiated bilateral swap arrangements in which trading partners can settle accounts in RMB” (p. 164). Clearly, along with the perceived indispensability of the hegemon, China’s investment in outside options wins it significant concessions from established powers.

China’s climate negotiations also demonstrate the explanatory power of the proposed strategic multilateralism theory. For a long time China firmly held the position that economic development takes priority over environmental protection, and developed countries should assume their historic responsibilities (pp. 184–86). China played the hold-up role in the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties meetings because of its commonly perceived indispensability by the established powers: “the centrality of United States–China negotiations to progress in the climate regime” (p. 200). However, both China’s increased stake in climate change and environmental protection, (p. 209) and its divisive coalition (p. 211) motivate it to invest more in defending the existing climate regime.

Undoubtedly, this book is a timely contribution in light of ongoing change in the global political-economic landscape. In such an environment, it is very helpful for us to better understand a rising China’s foreign policy moves and their underlying logic. China’s Strategic Multilateralism serves as a great impetus to ask more questions about the interaction between existing powers and rising powers, such as whether established powers can also play hold-up if they know that rising powers’ investment in outside options is merely for the purpose of extracting more concessions from them, and whether such efforts will bear fruit any time soon. In addition, we can continue to explore to what extent the perceived indispensability in the international system is a result of structural changes in global politics.

Overall, this book presents a well-constructed theory and carefully selected cases and is both theoretically rich and methodologically sound. As such, it is a must-read for scholars, as well as policy practitioners who are interested in power transition, global governance, China, and the future of our planet.