Bilateral relations between neighbouring countries are usually treated with particular attention in the study and practice of international politics. This is not only because these interactions provide insights into the foreign policy calculus of each of the partners, but also because they illustrate the fragility and/or stability of regional patterns of order. When one of the partners is a country tipped to be the next superpower, then the interactions it has with its neighbours gain particular significance. The implication is that the relations a rising power has with its neighbours are indicative of the impact and trajectories of its global influence. This volume, edited by Bruce A. Elleman, Stephen Kotkin and Clive Schofield, provides probably the most comprehensive overview to date both of China's interactions with its neighbours and the kind of power relations that these reveal. It has to be acknowledged that attempts (if not the desire) to understand the motivations underpinning Chinese foreign policy are gaining increasing urgency in what is nearly universally acknowledged to be the “Asian century,” and this volume makes a meaningful contribution to this conversation.

As the contributions to this collection demonstrate, China's bilateral relations are part and parcel of broader region-building strategies in its neighbourhood. The volume discerningly draws attention to the increased prominence of China's regional arrangements – formal and informal – for the resolution of border disputes. It seems that in all the case studies included in this collection, Beijing's intention is the establishment of stable, peaceful and not least predictable relations with its neighbours. These would ensure not only China's security and prosperity, but also an provide an environment conducive to its rise to global prominence. In this setting, the contributors to Beijing's Power and China's Borders examine the extent to which an emerging pattern of global politics can be gleaned from the interactions between Beijing and its neighbours.

In a nutshell, the query then is whether China's nascent bilateral relations suggest a foreign policy outreach whereby Beijing's agency initiates idiosyncratic discourses and practices through which global neighbourhoods begin to perceive themselves as distinct regional actors. In this respect, this volume maps the shifting perspectives on China's international agency by providing detailed and unusually perceptive accounts of China's relations with its 20 neighbours: Afghanistan (Artemy M. Kalinovsky), Bhutan (Paul J. Smith), Brunei (Ian Storey), India (Brahma Chellaney), Indonesia (I Made Andi Arsana and Schofield), Japan (June Teufel Dreyer), Kazakhstan (Stephen Blank), Korea (Charles K. Armstrong), Kyrgyzstan (Erica Marat), Laos (Ian Townsend Gault), Malaysia (Vivian Lewis Forbes), Mongolia (Morris Rossabi), Myanmar (Brenda Whyte), Nepal (Chitra K. Tiwari), Pakistan (Christopher Tang), the Philippines (Lowell Bautista and Schofield), Russia (Mark Galleoti), Taiwan (Elleman), Tajikistan (Gregory Gleason) and Vietnam (Ramses Amer). These contributions make available contextual responses which vividly illustrate Beijing's bilateral relations. The exhaustive consideration provided by the analyses in this volume demonstrates the diversity of foreign policy attitudes and practices projected by Beijing in its neighbourhood. Such comprehensive investigations also help disrupt the perception of a singular and uniform external outreach by China through a parallel assessment of the security, political, economic and institutional aspects of Beijing's impact on its neighbourhood.

The editors' ability to bring together such a wide range of perspectives, positions and ideas, and to reflect critically on their implications, makes the volume extremely worthwhile. The thoughtful analyses of Beijing's relations with its neighbours attest both to the transformations in and the transformative potential of Chinese foreign policy attitudes. At the same time, such changes have backstopped the growing attention to the prospective trajectories of Beijing's international interactions. Reflecting this interest, the contributors provide a perceptive account of China's relations in its neighbourhood, focusing on the security strategies underpinning these relations and in particular China's capacity to resolve border disputes. In this way, the investigations included in Beijing's Power and China's Borders offer effective and compelling contextualization of the conflicting opinions on China's global roles and aspirations, and the whole range of contending views on whether its rise is a sustainable and positive phenomenon.

The end result is a nuanced framework for the explanation and understanding of China's international outlook. By dissecting the nature and practices of Beijing's agency in its neighbourhood, the volume makes an important and valuable intervention in both the explanation and understanding of China's foreign policy formulation as well as Beijing's conflict resolution practices in its neighbourhood. In particular, by looking at the ways in which Beijing addresses a whole spectrum of border issues and disputes, the accounts included in this volume offer a succinct and well-structured introduction to the content, motivation, practices and ideas animating China's security calculus. The contributors seem to concur with the proposition that the current rash of attention to Beijing's global outreach confirms the variety of new roles and attitudes that it has extended in world politics. In this respect, Beijing's Power and China's Borders offers an original perspective on China's external stance pivoted on Beijing's relations with its neighbourhood. At the same time, it presents a lucid and insightful analysis of the evolution, patterns and practices of China's interactions with its neighbourhood. The book will be welcomed by students, scholars and policy-makers alike. It will also be invaluable for the purposes of teaching and theorizing the ongoing transformations in global life as a result of China's increasing centrality in the patterns of global politics.