Let me start by saying that Xiaoyu Pu’s thoughtful account of China’s Global Identity more than does justice to the book: it discusses its key arguments and findings in a highly readable and trenchant way. But like any balanced critic, Pu also raises a number of important questions about the book that I attempt to address here.

One such question is whether it is possible to establish generalizable arguments regarding the evolution of China’s great power identity. Pu suggests the broader hypothesis that, potentially, Chinese great power identity is “largely correlated with China’s growing power and expanding interests.” Although I do not disagree with the logic of his hypothesis, my research has found that China’s sense of self as a big power has been ever present to some degree throughout its history. Even when China was on its knees during the century of humiliation, collective perceptions of its inherent greatness persisted. And even though Maoist China was objectively weak in material terms, this did not dissuade it from staking a claim to global leadership, whether as a self-fashioned leader of the Third World or as a “third force” balancing the United States and the Soviet Union.

The other way I address Pu’s question speaks to the ontology of the book. In many respects, this study represents an idiographic approach―as opposed to a nomothetic one―toward understanding China’s great power identity. Thus it intentionally steers clear of organizing thinking in terms of establishing or proving a general hypothesis; it is more concerned with uncovering the specificities concerning an unanswered real-world question. This is not to say, however, that there are no broader theoretical insights that could be drawn from the empirical findings. In the concluding chapter, for example, I discuss how the book’s findings connect to and have a bearing on the related theoretical literature in IR.

Pu also wonders if I might have overstated the role of the United States in shaping China’s great power identity. I agree that China does not seek to emulate the United States in every aspect and that other actors are also relevant to its great power identity. That said, as the key significant other in China’s rise, the United States has played a central role (relative to other countries) in influencing the course of Chinese great power identity. The United States is not the only external source of role ideas, but it is arguably the most important one when it relates to the “responsible great power” (RGP) identity. It is also necessary to clarify that the book identifies several reasons for the pursuit of the RGP identity, of which the US role is just one; other explanatory factors include imaging, external events, instrumentalism, social aspirations, and domestic ideational influences.

Last but not least, Pu suggests that the book may have neglected the motivations for other possible identities (in particular, the developing country role), as well as the tensions between these identities and China’s great power persona. Although it is true that China exhibits multiple personas on the global stage, this book has a more specific agenda: to unpack the RGP face with a level of depth and precision that has not been seen elsewhere. The space and scope constraints have meant, to some extent, sacrificing broader discussion of other identities for a more coherent and richer exploration of the RGP face.

The jigsaw puzzle of China’s identity in international relations remains incomplete. Subsequent scholarly efforts would do well to build on existing work (including Pu’s and mine) to fully illuminate the variegated and complex faces of China that we currently do not know enough about.