Leading Chinese international relations (IR) intellectual Qin Yaqing suggests that China’s role in international society “constitutes the century-puzzle of the Chinese since 1840” (“International Society as a Process,” Chinese Journal of International Politics, 3[2], 2010). Rebranding China compellingly shows that this puzzle lives on. Focusing on the country’s conflicted “duality” as both a great power and developing country (p. 10), Xiaoyu Pu’s book examines how and why China presents itself in particular ways in international politics. Pu’s answer is to turn to the notion of status signaling as a theoretical lens to understand China’s constant and complex state of global repositioning. This signaling of status comes in three forms: conspicuous consumption, conspicuous giving, and strategic spinning. The first modality refers to a situation where a state uses visible material spending to flag a higher status. The second form occurs when a state engages in the visible provision of public goods as a status signaler. The final modality concerns the process whereby a state pursues a particular narrative to project status that, for instrumental reasons, can be deliberately lower.

Under what conditions would China signal a higher or lower status? The book argues that a key explanatory variable is the type of primary audience for which the signals are intended. If this audience is domestic, then there is a tendency for China to emphasize its “rapidly rising” status. In contrast, when speaking to an international audience, the tendency is for China to present “a reassuring message of its developing country status” (p. 11).

As a theoretical exercise, Rebranding China makes a distinctive contribution to existing IR literature. One such body of scholarship is the developing literature relating to status in IR. Most of these studies focus on the premise that states seek a higher status in international society and that this pursuit of status can be an important driver of international conflicts, particularly among rising powers or between emerging powers and established powers. Through the case of China’s discursive status as a developing country, this book shows that emerging powers do not always seek a higher status in international politics: they can intentionally seek a lower status for reasons such as communicating strategic reassurance, evading global commitments, and demonstrating bloc solidarity. This spotlight on what Pu calls the problem of “status over-recognition” (p. 12) is a refreshing take on status politics in IR, although questions could be raised about whether such instrumental pursuit of a lower status is temporary in nature and ultimately serves to help a rising power climb the global ranks through conservation of its resources. After all, it is hard to imagine any self-respecting nation yearning for a low international status permanently.

Another noteworthy theoretical innovation is Pu’s bringing the idea of signaling into the status literature in IR. Signaling in IR has tended to be applied to subjects such as an actor’s credibility, resolve, or intentions, and it is used typically around short-term events like crises. Pu argues instead that longer-term variables such as status can also exhibit a signaling logic, whereby states communicate their preferred social standing to be recognized by others. Status signaling is not a new concept and can be found in fields as diverse as biology and behavioral economics, but its adaptation to IR here is a first.

In its application of status to the study of Chinese foreign policy, Rebranding China is arguably the second significant treatise after Yong Deng’s China’s Struggle for Status (2008). In contrast to Deng’s emphasis on the PRC’s status dissatisfaction as a lens to understand Chinese diplomacy, Pu adopts a more agnostic view of China’s relationship with its status, arguing that the Chinese leaders are not always insecure about their country’s international status. Indeed Pu takes care to differentiate his book from Deng’s, noting that his book covers the years after the publication of Deng’s study.

Although the theoretical merits of the book are evident, its empirical contribution is less persuasive. This is not to suggest that the book does not add value in shedding new empirical light on China’s foreign policy. Its coverage of the weak developing country image, a facet of China that is commonly neglected or not understood in any significant detail, is timely and much needed. Beyond that, however, there is relatively little information on empirical developments in Chinese diplomacy that has not been seen elsewhere. In part this relates to the case studies explored in the book—all well-known episodes or developments in China’s foreign policy―which in turn bring attention to the book’s methodological shortcoming: the loosely defined basis for selecting these cases. Pu’s account hones in on evidence from the cases of China’s naval modernization, military parades, and its responses during the Asian financial crisis and the global financial crisis to illustrate how the three mechanisms of status signaling—conspicuous consumption, conspicuous giving, and strategic spinning—operate in the real world. Yet the selection of these cases is based on the cursory rationale that they are “all politically important in Chinese foreign policy” (p. 13). Together with the lack of clarity on the meaning of political importance, there are arguably several politically important cases in Chinese foreign policy—for example, China’s Belt Road Initiative or its involvement in the global climate change regime—that the book could have analyzed but opted not to do so. Why some “politically important” cases are explored while others are ignored is not clear. Without a more robust case selection criterion, the book runs the risk of being seen as selecting cases based on the dependent variable.

Chapters 5 and 6, which address the cases of the Asian financial crisis and global financial crisis, respectively, do attempt to include discussion of empirical developments that show a more coercive or assertive face of China that runs counter to the imaging that Beijing seeks to achieve with conspicuous giving and strategic spinning. Yet the book stops short of using the same signaling mechanisms to address these contrary examples, which begs the question of whether less convenient evidence is being glossed over in illustrating status signaling.

A number of key arguments in the book also invite empirical scrutiny. In particular, it asserts that China tends to present itself as a nonthreatening developing country “when targeting an international audience” (p. 102). Yet there are numerous instances when China portrayed or demonstrated its rising power profile in front of international audiences. One well-known example is Xi Jinping’s participation in the 2017 World Economic Forum where the Chinese president pointedly positioned China as a defender of the extant global economic order and sought to underline its leadership credentials. Other examples include China’s growing involvement in activities relating to global governance and its initiation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It is also worth noting that, in US-China interactions since at least the global financial crisis, Chinese leaders and diplomats have not been reticent in depicting their nation as a major power in front of US counterparts: the Chinese narrative of a “new model of major power relations” to situate US-China relations is a case in point. The author suggests that China’s emphasis on its rising power status in global settings is linked to a desire to “seek privileges in international institutions” (p. 11). This claim is only partially true because it overlooks the innate, long-standing Chinese desire to regain what some scholars have described as China’s “lost international status” as a leading power (Yan Xuetong, “The Rise of China in Chinese Eyes,” Journal of Contemporary China, 10[26], 2001). It also ignores those occasions when Beijing has emphasized the converse—that is, its role as a developing country—to gain or maintain privileges in international institutions, as it has been wont to do at the World Trade Organization. The larger point here is not that the book’s arguments are mistaken; there is an undeniable degree of truth in them. Rather, the arguments are framed in a way that eschews the nuances and complexity of Chinese positioning on the global stage.

Still, the aforementioned shortcomings should not detract from the book’s intellectual accomplishments. Rebranding China is an engaging work that not only pushes the boundaries of theoretical knowledge on status in international politics; it is also an original development of a budding research area—the so-called logic of positionality—that deserves greater attention in IR (see Janice Bially Mattern and Ayse Zarakol, “Hierarchies in World Politics,” International Organization, 70[3], 2016). In relation to scholarship on China’s foreign policy, the book’s discussion of the developing country role is a welcome addition to current conversations that tend to harp on China’s rising status. It is a trenchant reminder that internal tensions regarding China’s future path and identity, whether to “keep a low profile” or “strive for achievement,” remain unresolved.