International relations scholarship has moved beyond debates between realists and liberals, yet much of the literature on the growth of Chinese power, or on China's regional and global interests, reflects theories of balance of power or peace through trade and engagement. Many of the most popular and well-known works on China (for example, Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro's 1998 book The Coming Conflict with China) view the economic success and modernization of China as a threat to U.S. interests and to the larger international order. William Callahan's Contingent States not only avoids this standard refrain but actively rejects and criticizes it. Callahan accomplishes two important goals in his book. First, he shows how conventional international relations paradigms can mislead us about the “true” aims of Chinese foreign policy; and secondly, he uses “Greater China” as a theoretical framework to examine four issues in Asia: the South China Sea dispute, Sino-Korean relations, the return of Hong Kong, and cross-straits relations between China and Taiwan. In addition to an introduction, theoretical chapter, and conclusion, one chapter is devoted to each of these issues.
Callahan criticizes both IR theory and most studies of Greater China as being too state-centered (pp. xxvii, xxix), or just simply focused on economic and cultural cohesion (p. 7). He argues that the phrase “Greater China” is generally used to describe territory or sets of relationships, when it can be more productively used to shed light on transnational relations of power and influence. His theory of Greater China looks at concepts such as civilization, crisis, empire, Confucianism, harmony, national humiliation, friendship, and culture (p. xxi) to explain the four case studies.
Greater China is a useful focal point for the sort of Foucaultian analysis Callahan engages in here. Greater China may be absent from geopolitical maps and international law, but it does exist as economic and cultural ties among peoples, corporations, and cultures, thus, as he demonstrates, it exemplifies the “contingent” state of international politics. By looking at Greater China in this way, he is able to demonstrate how civilization is an important part of politics in East Asia, and that civilization is not a coherent “thing” but a multicoded set of relations (such as nativism, conquest, conversion, and diaspora).
However, Callahan's criticism of the literature on Greater China is too simplistic. Much of this scholarship begins with the idea that definitions, boundaries, and understandings of Greater China, are problematic. The term is sometimes used in reference to an economic entity comprised of coastal and southern mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, often including Chinese business networks from Southeast Asia (Singapore, Thailand Indonesia, and Malaysia). Sometimes it is also used to refer to an ethnic grouping of culturally similar communities, again in coastal and southern China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and including the ethnic Chinese of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Callahan succeeds in pointing out the flaws in traditional IR perspectives on the growth of Chinese power. But there are several points on which he falls short. In Chapter 4 (p. 58), he writes that traditional Chinese concepts of sovereignty are more symbolic than legal-territorial. Yet I doubt that the two can be distinguished so neatly, as in China, the issue of sovereignty and the issue of territorial integrity are unquestioningly tied together. The Chinese regime bases its legitimacy not on idealism and the future utopia of communism, as it once did, but on continued economic growth and on the idea that the Chinese Communist Party is the only force capable of continuing to hold the nation together, regain lost pieces of territory, and return China to the great power it once was. Thus, sovereignty and territorial integrity are linked, both because of party statements and propaganda and because many Chinese have come to internalize this view of their nation's goals and identity.
Callahan's case studies are also flawed. The importance of an issue varies over time, and in 2005, Sino-Korean relations and the Spratly dispute seem less problematic than perhaps they were when he first drafted the book. While it is true that conflicting claims over the Spratly Islands have not been resolved, Chinese diplomatic efforts at winning friends and allies in Southeast Asia have been so successful that it is hard to imagine a military conflict arising among claimants in the South China Seas. It is reasonable to argue, as Callahan does, that using norms of sovereignty and international law has complicated or maybe even perpetuated the disputes over the Spratly outcroppings; however, it is littoral states themselves (China, Vietnam, and others) who have pointed to maps, historical documents, and particular clauses of international treaties to stake their claims. Given China's enormous energy needs for the twenty-first century, and its recent charm offensive with its Asian neighbors, it seems more likely than not that a deal will be brokered among the claimants that works in China's favor. My optimism stems from understanding the interests and foreign policy of the states involved, not just from deconstructing the problem to view it another way.
Ultimately, this is a useful book for what it tries to do—to criticize traditional IR theories and perceptions of Chinese foreign policy. However, its ability to shed light on China's “real” intentions in regional or international relations is quite limited. A better way of understanding China's rising power and influence in Asia is to acknowledge the importance of sovereignty to Asian countries and to understand the importance of culture and civilization in policymaking. Callahan may be correct in questioning and problematizing notions of sovereignty, yet in Asia, states see their territorial integrity and independence as inviolate. This is a key factor in understanding both a country's foreign policy and the limited success of regional organizations like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation).
Contingent States is a worthwhile book for critical theorists of mainstream international relations, but I do not believe it will convert scholars who take a more traditional view of the role and interests of states in the international arena.
