Fuzuo Wu’s Energy and Climate Change Policies in China and India: A Two-Level Comparative Study is a well-researched and empirically rich study of one of the most challenging issues of our time. As the world’s largest and third-largest energy consumers and greenhouse gas emitters, respectively, China and India are indispensable for solving the world’s energy and climate problems. Wu’s book offers a systematic framework for understanding the forces that shape their energy and climate change policies.

Wu seeks to explain the seemingly contradictory and inconsistent policies that the two countries have adopted to deal with energy insecurities and climate change. She categorizes the pressures driving China’s and India’s policies into two levels: domestic and systemic. At the domestic level, the pursuit of wealth or sustained economic growth is the key driver. At the systemic level, Wu identifies two specific pressures: both countries’ quest for great power status and their asymmetrical dependence on the United States and its allies. She further divides China’s and India’s energy and climate change policies into proactive and reactive ones. These proactive and reactive policies are the result of tensions brought about by domestic and systemic pressures that pull the two countries’ energy and climate change policies in different directions. Wu presents a “two-level” theoretical framework in chapter 2 to demonstrate how their domestic preference for acquiring wealth/economic growth is constrained by systemic pressures (p. 35).

Chapters 3 and 4 deal with domestic energy policies and energy diplomacy, respectively. Although chapter 3 contains few surprises, in that it is well known that China and India are seeking energy security to ensure continued economic growth, it is nevertheless useful as a comparative study of similarities and divergences in their approaches. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on climate change policies by looking at climate diplomacy and domestic climate policies, respectively. Chapter 7 examines the implications of China’s and India’s policies for global energy and climate governance, whereas chapter 8 summarizes the key findings of the study and underscores the relevance of the book for understanding the two countries’ rise.

The most interesting parts of the book are chapters 4 and 5, where Wu is able to demonstrate how domestic and systemic pressures work at cross-purposes to produce a set of policies in China and India that are contradictory. In chapter 4, Wu uses process-tracing to illuminate the international drivers that have forced China and India to change course in their policies toward Iran, Sudan, and Myanmar. Even though both countries seek to cultivate these so-called pariah states to secure energy sources, they are under constant international pressure to undertake actions that are at odds with these cultivation efforts. Whereas China’s and India’s asymmetrical dependence on the United States and its allies for economic development and energy security is the most significant factor in the case of Iran, Sudan, and Myanmar, pressures from both state and nonstate actors to project the image of a “responsible great power” is the key driver behind both countries’ decision to intervene in the domestic politics of these countries.

Chapter 5 explains why China and India free-ride and burden-share at the same time, behaviors that are at odds with each other. It is noteworthy that their views on burden-sharing are evolving, with both countries moving away from the emphasis on absolute sovereignty to accepting a certain level of impingement of their sovereignty. Of particular value to China and India specialists are the domestic debates within each country on the issue of climate change mitigation (pp. 209–12).

Theoretically, the book offers a systemic framework for understanding China’s and India’s policies by distinguishing the domestic and systemic pressures that the two countries face as they navigate energy security and climate change. The framework is generalizable and can be used to examine the policies of other emerging countries such as Brazil and South Africa. Wu also offers an eclectic framework, incorporating both material and ideational factors and domestic and international pressures.

However, Wu’s framework is not novel, because it is widely accepted in foreign policy analysis that states face two-level pressures. Wu herself notes this consensus that has emerged since the late 1980s with Robert Putnam’s work (pp. 21–22). Although she emphasizes states’ domestic economic development as the key driving force in contrast to Putnam’s emphasis on leaders and domestic politics, Wu provides scant justification for why she focused on domestic economic development rather than leadership and other aspects of domestic politics (pp. 35–48).

Wu’s description of China’s and India’s policies as proactive and reactive is also not new or counterintuitive. All states behave both proactively and reactively (pp. 31–34). A more salient question is the tipping point between the two responses: When do China’s and India’s policies turn from proactive to reactive, and vice versa? Relatedly, what are the conditions that will shift the trajectory of their energy and climate change policy behavior? Wu offers a diagrammatic representation of her theoretical framework (figure 2.1), which clearly represents the independent variables but underexplains the causal mechanisms. For instance, Wu writes, “When domestic pressure to seek wealth overwhelms pressures at the systemic level, China’s and India’s energy and climate policy measures are expected to be proactive. However, when external pressures stemming from their desire to seek status and from their asymmetrical interdependence are powerful enough to overwhelm domestic pressures, China and India are expected to modify their proactive energy and climate policy measures and, accordingly, these measures are reactive” (p. 76). Under what conditions will one pressure overwhelm the other? Specifying these conditions would provide greater clarity about the causal mechanisms.

Wu’s book makes a significant contribution to the growing collection of scholarly works comparing China and India. Their size and growing economies, historical development, civilizational narratives, and importance in Asia and, for that matter, in the world make a strong case for comparing them. Although there are stand-alone studies on each of the two countries’ energy and climate policies as well as those that compare them, Wu’s book is an important contribution because it combines both energy and climate change policies when comparing the two countries. Wu rightly points out that energy and climate change policies are closely related (p. 17).

However, Wu could have further added to comparative work on China and India by exploring other significant findings that arose from her research. One puzzle that recurs through the book is that, despite differences in the two countries’ political systems, there are more similarities than differences between their energy and climate change approaches. A corollary here would be to account for the differences in Chinese and Indian approaches. These are questions that deserve further exploration and can lead to generalizable hypotheses about the behavior of rising powers, regardless of political systems.

These limitations notwithstanding, Wu’s study is empirically rich and provides a systematic framework for understanding China’s and India’s energy and climate change behavior. It lays a foundation for scholars to further explore the behavior of rising powers in energy and climate change. The book is an important addition to syllabi for courses on energy and climate change and for China-India studies.