China's rapid rise as one of the most powerful forces in Central Asia is a development that has substantial ramifications for the future of both the region and the People's Republic of China (PRC). While this seemingly sudden rise of China in Central Asia has surprised many of those who study the region, the authors of The Chinese Question in Central Asia demonstrate that it probably should not. In this book, Marlène Laruelle and Sébastien Peyrouse meticulously document the evolution of China's growing impact in the region over the last two decades in such a way that it appears to have been an almost inevitable result of the Central Asian states' incorporation into global markets following the fall of the USSR. Furthermore, their focus on socio-economic processes in China's relationship with the region rather than on geopolitics is a welcomed approach in the field of Central Asian studies, which has long been obsessed with the competition between “great powers.”

As the authors rightly point out, China's increasing role in Central Asia has not been accompanied as of yet by substantial political influence, which may be why so many analysts of the region have been surprised by it. The authors do provide an excellent chronology of the evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the driving role of the PRC in its development, but they also suggest that the SCO is more “an axis of convenience … than a coercive organization” (p. 38) due to the divergent interests of the parties involved. As a result, this regional security alliance is not likely to create a united front on global issues. Furthermore, the authors stress that while Chinese influence in the region is already strong enough to allow for substantial political leverage, the PRC has chosen a more cautious tact of employing “soft power” in Central Asia to satisfy its immediate interests.

If the book stresses the limits of China's political influence in the region today, it also suggests that this is likely to change as the PRC's economic interests in Central Asia rapidly expand. In fact, the authors go as far as to say that through its engagement with the region, China is rediscovering its “continental ambitions” and that before long Central Asia will be viewed internationally more as the “west of China” than as the “south of Russia.” However, they do not present these developments as the outcome of a geopolitical “great game” as is often the case in works about Central Asia. Rather, they substantiate these comments by providing a thorough inventory of China's rapidly increasing economic activity in the region. Unlike many discussions about Chinese interests in Central Asia, this inventory goes far beyond the analysis of Chinese oil and gas exploitation. Although oil and gas are addressed in depth, the book also stresses the development of transportation and trade infrastructure in the region that is focused on connecting China with markets and natural resources not only in Central Asia, but beyond to the Middle East and Europe. This infrastructure development, which has quickly escalated in the last several years not only highlights how extensive China's influence is likely to be in the region in the future, but also demonstrates why Central Asia is so strategically important to the PRC.

While the book's documentation of the evolution of China's activities in Central Asia is already a substantial contribution to existing literature, the authors also make a valiant effort to analyse the local response to these activities, which dominates the second part of the manuscript. This analysis is especially admirable given the closed nature of political culture in the Central Asian states and the resulting difficulty in ascertaining either actual public opinion or the substantive political debates that are waged among elites. In this analysis, the authors do not provide a definitive answer to the question of how Central Asians view China's increased engagement in their region. Instead, they offer a juxtaposition of “Sinophobia” and “Sinophilia” that runs through public discourse and is fuelled simultaneously by a fear of Chinese domination and a welcoming of the PRC's economic benefits. Furthermore, Laruelle and Peyrouse suggest that this ambiguity in Central Asians' emotions about their large and powerful neighbour is less about China itself and is more a reflection of their general anxiety about the region's future role in a global economy.

Overall, this is an excellent book to orient those interested in China's increasing impact on the region of Central Asia. As an overview, it may not always satisfy those already researching this question, but it is perhaps the most comprehensive source for those just beginning to investigate the subject. My only substantive criticism of the work is that it frequently compares China's engagement with Africa to that in Central Asia when a much better comparison would be Southeast Asia. Central Asia, like Southeast Asia, is far more strategically important to China's economic expansion than is Africa precisely because these regions border on the PRC and, hence, represent both potential industrial labour markets and gateways to markets further afar in ways that Africa does not.

Finally, there is another aspect of the book that may disappoint some, but which I do not consider as a shortcoming. The authors are careful to not pass judgment on whether the growing influence of China in Central Asia that they so well document is a positive or negative development for the world at large. Although they do engage this issue to a certain extent, they generally ask more questions about it than they answer. If this ambiguity about the eventual impact of China's power projection in the region may dissatisfy those interested in US, European or Russian policy responses to this situation, it is this attribute of the authors' analysis that makes this book a particularly valuable work for the classroom where such judgments can be intensely debated.