The early scholarship on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has largely focused on China’s historical experiences of foreign aggression and its feeling of victimhood as explanations for expansionist tendencies on its periphery (Whiting Reference Whiting1975). However, with the emergence of new primary sources at the turn of the century, alternative regionalist voices are now challenging these established claims. Ambassador Vijay Gokhale’s latest book, China’s Wars: The Politics and Diplomacy Behind Its Military Coercion, is one such contribution that empirically challenges established beliefs about China and offers much-needed regionalist perspectives on Chinese coercion around its periphery. It not only provides meticulous documentation of China’s conflicts while simultaneously representing a new, emerging school of thought in China studies in India, but, without being overly appreciative or dismissive of China, it also seeks to understand Beijing on its own terms. It grounds its analysis in Chinese sources, unlike in the past, when there was heavy reliance on Western scholarship.

The book examines China’s four conflicts, including the 1958 Taiwan Strait Conflict, the 1962 India–China War, the 1969 Sino-Soviet conflict, and the 1979 Sino-Vietnam War, as well as subsequent Chinese coercion in the South China Sea against the Philippines and Taiwan. The author establishes a pattern of Chinese aggression and dismisses the claim that the PRC has been a victim of foreign aggression. Instead, the book highlights that these disputes were initiated by the PRC. The book also challenges the notion that the PRC’s strategic culture is inherently pacifist and highlights China’s notion of victimhood, which it has used to justify its offensive actions as “counter-attacking in self-defense”.

The author relies on declassified Chinese documents now available across multiple United States libraries and Indian archives, including the Wilson Center, to establish that the PRC initiated most of these military actions. For instance, he highlights that China’s original plan was to bomb Kinmen, a Taiwanese island 2 km from the Chinese coast of Fujian, in July 1958. For this, the author cites Mao Zedong’s letter to Marshall Peng Dehuai, PLA General and PRC’s Minister of National Defense, and PLA chief of staff Huang Kecheng. The letter details Mao’s explanation for waiting until a structurally favorable time to attack Taiwan. In Mao’s opinion, this was to establish a narrative that it was a counter-attack. The author also cites the memoir of Wu Lengxi, Vice Minister of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, to show that the attack on Kinmen heightened international tensions and taught the United States a lesson.

Similarly, in other disputes, the author shows a pattern in which China waited for an opportune time to attack, enabling it to claim that it was a “counter-attack in self-defense.” In the case of India, the PRC claims that its “counter-attack” was in response to the “massive general attacks” against Chinese frontier guards in both eastern and western sectors of the Sino-Indian boundary simultaneously. Neville Maxwell’s early writing primarily blames India’s forward policy and conspicuously claims that China was unaware of India’s territorial claims (Maxwell Reference Maxwell1970). This was the earliest foundational Western account of the 1962 war that blamed India and has further cemented Western scholarship’s understanding of the 1962 India-China war. However, Maxwell’s account, as argued by India’s foremost strategic thinker, K. Subrahmanyam, was a mere polemic rather than history, built toward a predetermined conclusion using unpublished Indian Army and government files selectively given to him (Subrahmanyam Reference Subrahmanyam1970). Gokhale’s book convincingly cites Chinese texts, including those by a Chinese diplomat, Yang Gongsu, and a Tibet-based PLA General, Zhang Jingwu, to show that the PRC was aware of the overlapping territorial claims (Yang Reference Yang1999). Furthermore, the author highlights records from Indian archives showing that the Indian Prime Minister personally briefed the Chinese Premier on these claims, and that China was aware of India’s depiction of the international boundary from the Survey of India, 1953. The author also questions how the existing narrative continuously forgets China’s occupation of Aksai-Chin and the construction of a national highway through the disputed region, and provocation from 1959 along the border, before blaming India’s forward policy, which was a reaction to these developments.

Similarly, in the case of the Sino-Soviet dispute of 1969, the author dismisses the Chinese claim that the Soviets had first opened fire, and the Soviet attack was “completely predetermined and deliberately engineered.” Drawing on multiple primary and secondary sources, including the most authoritative account of the dispute by Chinese historian Yang Kuisong, the author shows how the Chinese side laid a trap for the Soviets. This pattern repeats itself in the China–Vietnam dispute, where the People’s Daily, a CCP mouthpiece, has called Chinese action “just action in defense of our frontiers.” But the author highlights how Chinese actions were not driven by self-defense but by an intention to a) manage the erstwhile client state, which was challenging the patron, b) arrest Vietnam’s objectives to shape the regional situation, and c) prevent deepening of Soviet-Vietnam relations.

Throughout the course of this book, the author’s meticulous study of all four disputes highlights a repetitive pattern of Chinese statecraft: 1) awaiting the opportune moment, 2) creation of the condition that produces politically defensible counteractions, 3) cultivation of a victimhood narrative after the action. Furthermore, through these case studies, the author answers questions about the means and methods the PRC uses to deter and its motives for initiating the conflict. Gokhale’s work exemplifies this thought through rigorous engagement with Chinese sources, archival research, and careful examination of the decision-making process in assessing Chinese behavior. This is complemented by his four-decade-long experience in India’s foreign policymaking, a significant portion of which was spent studying China.

The only minor limitation of this book is the absence of an explanation of the selection of case studies. For example, the exclusion of the Korean War or other Chinese coercive actions in the near seas. The rationale for selecting or excluding these case studies would have further strengthened the methodological foundations of this book. Nonetheless, the book fills a major gap in the development of the regionalist framework for understanding China’s use of force and would inspire many young Indian scholars to develop a nuanced view, beyond the existing established narratives, for analyzing China’s military-security apparatus. Such a systematic study is indicative of a broader trend for the future of China studies as a discipline for emerging scholars in the Indo-Pacific region.