This is one of the first major works examining Chinese sovereignty in the post-Mao era. Unlike earlier works that have examined sovereignty through its manifestation in one or two policy areas—such as Taiwan, human rights, or economic integration—Allen Carlson's synthesizes Chinese behavior and rhetoric over a range of issue areas, from Taiwanese independence to World Trade Organization accession.

Carlson finds Chinese policy on sovereignty to be contradictory. In the economic and human rights realms, the Chinese government has acquiesced to a certain degree of “boundary-transgressing” behavior that has weakened sovereign claims and made external actors more important to domestic debates and policy shifts. However, in other areas, most notably on the question of Taiwan, the Chinese government has acted relentlessly to stem the tide of sovereign loss through constant restatement of its commitment to use force to defend its claims to Taiwan. Sovereignty as one of the most critical principles in international relations is not pursued uniformly even in the Chinese case, a nation well known for its commitment to nationalist principles, such as noninterference in its domestic affairs and unwavering concentration on erasing the humiliations of the colonial era. As the author shows through his exploration of this range of sovereign issues, sovereignty is a bundle of rights. Invocation of these rights may not occur smoothly as states move to protect what is most important to them while giving up other rights in order to obtain different goals in the international system, such as economic integration, global legitimacy, and stable regional relations.

Carlson demonstrates this argument through examination of the four bundles of sovereign rights that he argues are most important to the concept of sovereignty. These rights include possession of territory (territorial sovereignty), jurisdiction over a certain population (jurisdictional sovereignty), the right to rule over the domestic population without interference from other states (sovereign authority), and the right to regulate economic activity within its own borders (economic sovereignty). Changes in China's behavior and rhetoric are noted in all realms but in varying directions. The Chinese state is giving away sovereignty with one hand while attempting to reign in other types of sovereign loss with the other.

The author's explanation for these complex policy shifts emerges from his accurate and intelligent critique of the new sovereignty literature in international relations theory. His empirical finding (Chinese policy shifts regarding sovereignty have not been uniform either over time or issue area) is used to extend the theoretical debate on the nature of sovereignty in the modern era. The power of each competing causal explanation in the literature (strongly held normative views, rational cost–benefit analysis, and external pressure from outside actors) also changes over time. He builds a dynamic argument that privileges leadership initiative in the early reform era (especially that of Deng Xiaoping), but then places far greater explanatory power in external pressure and norm diffusion for the substantial policy changes in economic sovereignty and Chinese engagement in the international human rights debate. Despite Carlson's identification with the constructivist school in international relations theory, he does not reject an interest-based argument. In fact, each explanation for the shifts in the four areas is built on the recognition that the Chinese state has shifted its stances on sovereignty in order to reap the benefits of globalization, economic integration, and greater mutual contact with the outside world. He argues that interests only, however, cannot explain why the Chinese government, for example, became much more willing to engage in the international human rights debate in the 1990s, almost immediately after the debacle of the suppression of the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement. He effectively uses the Chinese case to advance theoretical arguments that are significant for the ongoing explorations of how sovereignty is changing amid globalization in all its shapes and forms.

While the book is effective in its use of elite interviews and content analysis of an extensive number of documents to show that policy shifts have occurred, Carlson's argument does not delve deeply into the policymaking process. One wonders, then, what might have been missed given the importance that others have placed on the ways in which policy is made (and thwarted) by Chinese officialdom. For example, the broad changes in policy toward economic sovereignty may be at least partially explained by the actions of provincial and local leaders. Recent shifts in the human rights debate may have been advanced by domestic activists involved in the weiquan yundong (rights-protection movement). Given that the rights of sovereignty are as much about power over citizens as they are about power vis-à-vis other states, the author overemphasizes the role of elites, both domestic and international. As many studies of the Chinese reform era have now argued, radical policy change at the center is often prefaced by aggressive and daring actions of lower-level agents. Carlson tells us mainly about what those at the center have said and written about the changes that have occurred; there is probably still even more to tell about what others did to advance policy change and to advance changing notions of sovereignty. Attention to this level of analysis does not contradict his general argument and is, in fact, entirely congruent with his findings that sovereignty has shifted more in the economic and social realms than in the territorial or jurisdictional ones.

Unifying China, Integrating with the World will be of interest to a broad array of scholars and policymakers. Its theoretical sophistication advances the general sovereignty debate in international relations theory, while the empirical arguments will be of great interest to policymakers who crave a more sophisticated picture of Chinese foreign policy than the engagement versus China threat debate. As China's role in the world becomes more important, this book should be effective in thwarting simplistic assumptions about how Chinese power, perhaps Chinese superpower, will be manifested.