China’s rise is one of the most dynamic phenomena in today’s world politics. While international relations scholars and pundits are fascinated by the unprecedented implications of China’s ascent due to the perceived “power transition” in the international system, little attention is given to the nexus between China and the world. Here, “China” not only refers to the “state,” a unitary actor in the black box as neorealists suggest, but also includes leaders, intellectuals, and ordinary people in the society. In the same vein, the “world” means not only the material power-based structure of states but also the normative and ideational system in an international society.

By unpacking the concepts of “China” and the “world,” the two books under review shed new light on the studies of China’s rise. In China, the United States, and Global Order, Rosemary Foot and Andrew Walter, two prominent China and IR scholars, explore the behavioral consistency of China and the United States with global order norms. On the basis of the English School of IR theory and the cosmopolitan understanding of global order, they suggest that various norms are essential constituent parts of global order, which is continuously contested between traditional pluralism and liberal solidarism. In contrast to G. John Ikenberry in After Victory (2001), who suggests that a more solidarist liberal order has emerged and dominated the post–Cold War world, Foot and Walter treat global order and embedded norms as dynamic in nature. In other words, norms are not only shaping but also shaped by states’ behavior in a mutually constitutive fashion.

By focusing on “the two most important countries in the contemporary global order” (p. 15), Foot and Walter investigate three main questions in the book: 1) What factors shape the degree of states’ behavioral consistency with global norms? 2) What factors have determined Chinese and American behavior toward different norms? 3) How has the bilateral relationship between China and the United States influenced the level of behavioral consistency? While the introduction of the book provides a framework for answering the first question, the second and third questions are empirically explored through five case studies, that is, how China and the United States have behaved in regard to the five prevailing norms, including the use of force, macroeconomic policy surveillance, the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, climate change, and financial regulation. In conclusion, the authors suggest that “neither China nor the United States exhibit consistently high levels of behavioral conformity across a range of global normative frameworks relevant to important areas of foreign and domestic policy. . . . [F]or China, there has been a broad trend towards gradually rising levels of behavioral consistency, but with some important exceptions. For the United States, there has been no equivalent trend in either direction, but instead a general tendency toward important behavioral inconsistencies at particular times” (pp. 279–80).

In explaining these variations of Chinese and American behavior toward global norms, Foot and Walter emphasize three factors: 1) the level of domestic social and political significance that a particular norm has for each country; 2) the perceived fairness and legitimacy of the norm; and 3) the global power hierarchy and the associated distributional issues. In other words, both China and the United States will abide by global norms when they perceive the fairness and legitimacy of these norms, which conform to their self-defined national interests, values, and culture. Certainly, it is not an easy job for either China or the United States to adopt a convergent stand in compliance with the normative frameworks in the current international system. Therefore, recalling the contestation feature of global norms and order, the two authors suggest that both countries will be better off if they focus on a battle of norms instead of strategic rivalry, because the bilateral relations can facilitate and shape a more cooperative global order.

If the Foot and Walter book presents a nuanced portrait of the “world,” as well as the interaction between two great powers and global order, China Across the Divide focuses on opening the black box of “China.” The premise of this edited volume is that China’s world role can be better understood through capturing “some of the key complex and simultaneous interactions between the global and domestic levels in the study of China’s external relations” (p. 1). In order to fulfill this ambitious intellectual goal, editor Rosemary Foot and eight contributors investigate three aspects of the Chinese society that have been influenced by China’s rise and globalization.

The first section of the book examines how ideas shape China’s identity, affect Chinese perceptions of its role and status in the international system, and influence China’s foreign policy behavior. While William Callahan suggests that more attention should be paid to the ideational difference and competition between the official and citizen perspectives on China’s identity in the world, Feng Zhang explores the historical and cultural roots of China’s self-perceived exceptionalism in foreign policy. Robert Ross, on the other hand, investigates the rise of nationalism and its implications for China’s recent “assertive diplomacy.”

The second section is composed of two chapters, which touch on two important but sometimes neglected interactions between China and the outside world: international immigration to China and transnational consumption. Frank Pieke investigates the unique feature of international immigration to China and Karl Gerth discusses the unintended consequences of extreme markets for babies and wives, sexual services, organs, and endangered species in contemporary China due to deepening interdependence and globalization.

The book’s last section examines the impact of globalization on China as well as various domestic responses, from resistance to acceptance, inside Chinese society. Andrew Walter suggests that China’s contribution to imbalances in global payments can be explained by “a complex and evolving dynamic between the leadership and two different audiences, domestic and external” (p. 152). Gudrun Wacker’s chapter discusses how domestic societal factors and international pressures have shaped China’s improving, yet still limited, behavior regarding human rights after the Tiananmen incident. Joanna Lewis examines the role of domestic energy demands and challenges in shaping China’s environmental diplomacy.

Three major contributions are worth noting in these two books. Global Order is a rare example of the integration of the English School’s IR theory and area studies. Differing from the unfortunate division between rationalism and constructivism in the field of American IR, the English School emphasizes both material and ideational factors in shaping state behavior, as well as in constituting global order and international society. Creatively applying the essence of the English School and effectively blending their superb local knowledge on China–U.S. relations in both security and political economy, Foot and Walter broaden our understanding of both the normative and material implications of China’s rise in the international system.

Second, Global Order paves a new path in the study of norms and state behavior. As both authors suggest, their project fits the second and third waves of scholarship on norms, which not merely focus on whether norms matter (the first wave of research on norms) but ask the tougher question of how norms shape state behavior (p. 7). This is a very humble self-assessment since their work goes well beyond the existing scholarship on norms in two ways. On the one hand, they look at both domestic and international factors as well as the characteristics of norms to investigate the conditions under which states abide by a certain norm and the conditions under which they do not. On the other hand, the book examines how the bilateral relations between the United States and China influence their behavior toward global normative frameworks. This book implicitly inspires other scholars to investigate further the evolution and competition of norms in light of a power transition between the two countries in the twenty-first century. If there is a fourth wave of scholarship on normative changes in international society, this pioneering book will be studied, emulated, and challenged by other scholars in the field.

Last but not least, the two books under review set a good example of collaborative and interdisciplinary research in the IR field. Given the distinctive expertise of the two authors, Global Order covers both security and political economy arenas in U.S.–China relations. Across the Divide is even more impressive for crossing the fields of international relations, political economy, history, environmental science, and social anthropology to reveal the various impacts of globalization on Chinese society.

Merits aside, I have two minor criticisms. First, although Foot and Walter make good use of the English School’s rich and inclusive approach, other scholars may question the rigor and external validity of their arguments. For example, it may be true that all three sets of factors from domestic society, the international system, and the characteristics of norms contribute to the variations in foreign policy behavior of China and the United States toward different norms. However, which factor (or factors) is the decisive variable still seems an unanswered question. In addition, since both China and the United States are somehow exceptionally and uniquely significant in constituting the current international order, how to apply the arguments derived from their own cases to account for the behavior of other countries toward normative frameworks also seems to deserve further investigation.

Second, Across the Divide is notable for its broad scope. However, it does not escape from the common problem of most edited work, that is, the lack of an overarching and integrated theme and argument. As a seasoned editor, Foot has tried her best to provide a theoretical framework by incorporating both international and domestic levels of analysis in her introduction. However, the domestic versus international divide still seems insufficient for integrating the diverse aspects of the project, which range from traditional realpolitik and identity to nontraditional environmental politics, transnational consumption, and immigration. How to balance the depth and breadth of such an interdisciplinary project remains a tough challenge.

In a word, these two works are convincing and innovative in argument, sophisticated and ambitious in methodological rigor, and insightful and timely in policy relevance. Anyone who wants to make sense of China’s rise and its implications for both Chinese society and the world’s present and future normative framework will find them to be must-reads.