The Pragmatic Dragon: China’s Grand Strategy and Boundary Settlements

Product Description

China shares borders and asserts vast maritime claims with over a dozen countries, and it has had boundary disputes with nearly all of them. Yet in the 1960s, when tensions were escalating with the Soviet Union, India, and the United States, China moved to conclude boundary agreements with these neighbours peacefully. In this wide-ranging study of China’s boundary disputes and settlements, Eric Hyer finds China’s behaviour was strategic and even demonstrated willingness to compromise. This behaviour in earlier periods is pertinent to the ongoing territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas.
The Pragmatic Dragon analyzes these disputes and the strategic rationale behind China’s behaviour, providing important insights into the foreign policy of a nation whose presence on the world stage continues to grow.

Review
The Pragmatic Dragon significantly advances the reader’s knowledge of China’s reactions and counter-measures to its boundary disputes. Moreover, the case studies present an intriguing account of why and how China made compromises on its border disputes. It is a book worth reading for those with great curiosity and questions about China’s boundary settlements. This book may also interest political economists, historians, and general readers concerned with China’s response to the shift of the global balance of power. -- Kai Chen, Xiamen University, China ―
Pacific Affairs


The Pragmatic Dragon’s signal strength is its comprehensive and detailed treatment of various Chinese border issues. Hyer knows the details well and his presentation of each of these negotiations is extremely valuable. Most specialists in Chinese foreign affairs, as well as advanced undergraduates or graduates in foreign relations in Asia, will want this book. -- - Robert Sutter, author of Foreign Relations of the PRC: The Legacies and Constraints of China's International Politics since 1949


In The Pragmatic Dragon, Hyer skillfully weaves together many complex cases of China’s territorial disputes and settlements, placing them in his realist analytic framework, to identify the causal relations between the structural variables of the international system and China’s changing behavior in these disputes and settlements. His book attests to the increasing vigor in the study of Chinese foreign and security policy, and will be a highly welcome addition. -- -- Suisheng Zhao, Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the University of Denver, and Editor of Journal of Contemporary China
Book Description
A fascinating exploration of China’s strategic approach to boundary disputes with its neighbours.
About the Author
Eric Hyer is associate professor of political science and the coordinator for Asian studies at Brigham Young University. He was a visiting scholar at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, 1995-96.