Christopher Ford’s The Mind of Empire is explicitly presented as an interpretive essay that is aimed at the general reader rather than scholars of China. He is forthright in acknowledging that he does not speak or read Chinese and his book consequently relies predominantly on secondary sources (which are extensively footnoted). His concern is “to explain the Chinese conception of the world order to Western readers, to outline the ways in which this worldview has helped shape China’s relations with the rest of the world—not least with Western Europe and the United States—and to suggest some potential implications that these dynamics might have on the future” (p. 4). Ford begins this undertaking with the assumption that culture and history do matter, and that they constitute the means by which political elites perceive the international system. He is further concerned to draw comparisons between the Chinese (largely Confucian) and the Western conception of the role of states in the international order. To these ends, he draws a binary distinction between a Chinese worldview that is monist in its assumption of a natural existence of hierarchy that places China at the center of the world. This is in contrast to the pluralist Westphalian conception of states in Western thought, which is rooted in the coequal status of sovereigns, at least in a formal sense. Such a perspective, Ford argues, is antithetical to the Chinese tradition, which finds the very notion of sovereign equality inconceivable. Ford notes the existence of alternative philosophical traditions, but argues that the innate existence of hierarchy is a deeply embedded component of Chinese political thought. More specifically, he posits that although a struggle for supremacy (as in the Warring States Period) has been a recurrent theme of Chinese statecraft, the weight of tradition casts these events as a temporary stage en route to the goal of universal conquest and the monist supremacy of a single victor.

Ford develops this theme in successive chapters that proceed historically in tracing the history of Chinese foreign relations while also providing two chapters that outline in more detail Confucian and Western assumptions of international order. At times, this argument is subsumed to a more chronological—if highly condensed—discussion of the evolution of contacts between the empire and the West. His presentation traverses familiar territory, but he takes care not to resort to a simplistic depiction of China as the victim of Western imperialist aggression (although that is undoubtedly one element of the story). His concern, rather, is more with the cultural component of these interactions, which he views as emblematic of the concern to preserve status on the part of all involved parties. In Ford’s view, disputes between the conflicted parties “were in no way trivial for they carried symbolic baggage that went to the heart of each side’s worldview and system of politico-moral legitimacy” (p. 153). Ford’s conceptual construct, however, encounters additional challenges in dealing with the complexities of the contemporary era. As he acknowledges, it is difficult to use a civilizational framework to explain the 1950 Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty (short lived as it was) or China’s fierce commitment to principles of sovereign equality (unless they are seen as a temporary expedient). The decision to view China as a unitary actor—while necessary given the scope of this analysis—nonetheless precludes an investigation into the intricacies of decision making within the Chinese Communist Party as well as its efforts to adapt over time.

Although Ford does not employ a specifically constructivist mode of inquiry, his analysis conforms to an increasingly visible orientation in international relations theory to stress the role of ideas and the impact of civilizational and cultural factors. He acknowledges his intellectual debt to Alastair Iain Johnston’s concept of “strategic culture” (Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History, 1995), while his emphasis on status is reminiscent of the work of Richard Ned Lebow (see “Fear, Interest, and Honour: Outlines of a Theory of International Relations,” International Affairs, 82, 3 (2006), 431–448). His argument, moreover, parallels the work that has been undertaken in recent years both by Chinese and Western scholars on the concept of Tianxia (all under heaven) as a central theme that posits China’s central location in the universe (see William A. Callahan and Elena Barabantseva, eds., China Orders the World: Normative Soft Power and Foreign Policy, 2011). Ford’s analysis stands in contradistinction to realist modes of analysis, but it converges in certain respects in raising the question of China’s future aspirations, and the extent to which a rising China can be viewed as a potential threat to U.S. security interests (see, for example, Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflict with China, 1997).

Ford denies that culture acts as a deterministic factor in predicting Chinese foreign relations and takes considerable pains to hedge his bets regarding China’s potential ambitions to assume the status of a global hegemon (an aspiration that Chinese political elites steadfastly disavow). Although his final chapter provides a number of contingent scenarios, a predominant theme of his analysis highlights the tensions between the Westphalian and the traditional Chinese worldview. As he notes, “Chinese history provides essentially no precedent for the stable long term coexistence of coequal sovereigns and the country’s traditional ideals of moral governance and statecraft cannot comfortably even admit such a possibility” (p. 273).

This pessimistic assessment raises the question as to what levers the West might use most profitably to persuade China to comply with Western (albeit phrased as international) standards. Here, Ford’s long tenure in the U.S. government, including as a senior official in the State Department, inclines him toward a diplomatic solution. The policy implications of this book—which is written in part for public policy intellectuals as well as the general reader—are to seek to appeal to China’s perceived need for status and standing in the international community as a means to induce compliance. This is a strategy of directed socialization that also draws from constructivist assumptions that posit the importance of intersubjective interactions as a component of identity formation. At the same time, it also assumes the need of Chinese political elites for external validation of their stature, a position that is at odds with the civilizational tenor of this analysis, with its focus on Chinese exceptionalism. This is not to say, however, that this approach is not a concern of the Chinese Communist Party, which has rather paraphrased it as indicative of the West’s constant efforts to seek a “peaceful evolution” of the Chinese political system. The outcome of this dynamic is unknown, but Ford’s insightful and thoughtfully written book provides an engaging and challenging framework for interpretation.