The ambition of this edited volume is to integrate East Asian historical experience with modern international relations (IR) theory. It echoes a recent trend in the IR circle urging students to reexamine the distinct features of interstate interactions in historical East Asia in the face of the rapid economic and political rise of the region over the last three decades. Several of the volume's authors (e.g., David Kang and Ji-Young Lee) are themselves representatives of this trend. Some other contributors (e.g., Pamela Kyle Crossley, Alexis Dudden, Tonio Andrade, and Kenneth Swope) are distinguished historians who have published extensively on the interpolity relations of the region. Obviously, the book is targeting a wide readership across the conventional boundaries of academic disciplinaries.

The editors problematize IR theories in chapter 1 (“Introduction”) by pointing out that most contemporary studies are based on a selected and biased understanding of European history. In contrast, this book intends to provide “an introduction to the international relations of Asia looked at over a longue duree” (p. 5). It considers some of the most salient characteristics of the regional history, on one hand, and attempts to enrich IR theory in light of these empirical materials, on the other. That said, the end point of the book is not merely history or theory, but to “ponder the current order through a new lens” (p. 19). In other words, one of the key questions here is whether a rising China would impose a severe threat to the liberal international order dominated by the West. The editors imply that to understand it comprehensively, we need to evaluate from the lens of East Asian history—rather than that of conventional IR theory.

So, what are “East Asian international relations” distinct from the Westphalian model? According to the authors of chapter 1 and 2, it was a unipolar, hegemonic, and hierarchical system in which mutually accepted ideas and material interests played a critical role in shaping dynamic political or economic interactions. Although China, usually the most powerful entity in the system, had long been the center of the region, other polities proactively engaged with each other, using the same principles to maximize their interests, both domestically and diplomatically.

The main body of the volume, chapters 3–14, represents the “twelve events” of the subtitle. They provide a basic chronology of “East Asian international relations.” In the mid-seventh century, the Tang-Silla coalition defeated Paekche and Koguryŏ and reaffirmed so-called tributary stability in the region (chapter 4). The establishment of the Chosŏn dynasty further solidified the relationship that would become the backbone of both domestic and interstate politics in Korea (chapter 5). The Ming conflict with the regimes in Vietnam in the early fifteenth century indicated an intricate relationship between China and Vietnam, a pattern that lasted for many centuries (chapter 6). In the late sixteenth century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea and dragged China into a “Great East Asian War,” marking Japan's early attempt to challenge China's supremacy in the system (chapter 7). The Ming-Japanese competition occurred not only in Korea, but also over the maritime trade networks, which heavily influenced the maritime policy of the Ming court (chapter 3). A new regime, the Qing, replaced the Ming to become the superior power in the region in the mid-seventeenth century. It inherited many institutions from the Ming while adopting new ones during its (re)unification of China (chapter 8).

Along with the “Great Discovery,” European powers penetrated into East Asia. Before the nineteenth century, one of the most violent military conflicts happened in Taiwan, where the Dutch East India Company established a headquarters to oversee the regional trading network, while a Ming loyalist regime deemed to make it the base of its anti-Qing campaign (chapter 9). But the real clash between the two international systems came as late as the mid-nineteenth century with the two Opium Wars (chapter 10). While China suffered from military defeats, unequal treaties, and exterritoriality, Japan adopted a pragmatic method to deal with the pressure from the United States (chapter 11). Industrializing rapidly, Japan took advantage of the new international norm and fundamentally challenged the China-centered old system. It urged Korea—China's most loyal tributary state—to sign the Treaty of Kanghwa in accordance with the Westphalian model in 1874 (chapter 14) and launched a war against the Qing in 1894, which completely reshaped the regional order as one of nation-state (chapter 13). In Southeast Asia, the Philippine-American conflict echoed such a change, leading the whole region into a new historical era of nationalism (chapter 12). The conclusion (chapter 14), written by two political scientists, provides a possible reading of the content chapters in the context of IR theory.

Overall, the volume puts great effort into balancing a Euro-centric disciplinarity with as much Asian “variation” (p. 281). This is just an initial step, but by no means an insignificant one. It creates a valuable platform for scholars in IR and history to collaborate, discuss, negotiate, and debate. Many questions could be derived from the current study. For example, the very definition of “China,” a key component of the East Asian system, is not paid sufficient attention. It is problematic to use “China” as a consistent analytical unit over 2,000 years, since a great number of “events” shaping the East Asian system occurred within (as opposed to beyond) China. Historians may also question the choice to contrast a “hegemonic, hierarchal East” with an “egalitarian, Westphalian West.” The Westphalian system was too short and superficial: it began only in the seventeenth century, and the principle of sovereign equality was nothing more than an ideal. In reality, and on a global scale, hierarchy, imperialism, colonialism, and hegemonism are more common. If this model is not even an accurate framework for Euro-American international history “over the longue duree,” why should we treat it as a norm in the first place?