Rising Power, Limited Influence: The Politics of Chinese Investments in Europe and the Liberal International Order

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China’s resurgence has spawned anxieties about an impending revision of the Liberal International Order. Drawing on case studies of Chinese investments across Europe, the contributors to this volume investigate the ways in which China translates its growing resources into effective influence, with varying degrees of success. They find that influence is most effectively achieved by harnessing the agency of states and societies in Europe towards China’s preferences. Fragmented and messy rather than unified and coherent, these preferences comprise an amalgam of domestic, regional, and international considerations rather than aimed at revising world order. Nevertheless, as the contributors to this volume demonstrate, the interaction of European agency and Chinese preferences could have a variety of unintended consequences that range from straining the Liberal International Order to strengthening it.

Against narratives that foreground inevitable conflict or assured cooperation, Rising Power, Limited Influence innovates a dynamic framework to understand the granular ways in which states and societies in Europe interact with state and society in China to (re-)shape the Liberal International Order. Its contribution is three-fold. Conceptually, it offers a relational definition of power that pinpoints attention to the ways in which China translates its growing investments in Europe towards influencing the preferences of host countries. Empirically, it outlines the different modalities through which China harnesses the agency of European countries towards its own (fragmented) preferences. Theoretically, the book introduces a dynamic framework to understand the interaction between state-society relations in China with state-society relations in European countries to comprehensively appreciate the extent, limits, and modalities of resurgent China’s global influence.

Indrajit Roy, Senior Lecturer Global Development Politics, University of York, Jappe Eckhardt, Senior Lecturer International Political Economy, University of York, Dimitrios Stroikos, LSE Fellow at the Department of International Relations and Head of the Space Policy project at LSE IDEAS, London School of Economics and Political Science, Simona Davidescu, Senior Lecturer Public Policy Department of Politics, University of York

Indrajit Roy is Senior Lecturer at the University of York’s Department of Politics and co-director of the York Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre. He has previously held the ESRC Future Research Leader Fellowship at the Oxford Department of International Development and a Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. He is also the Executive Trustee of the UK Political Studies Association and Council Member of the Development Studies Association.

Jappe Eckhardt is Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at the Department of Politics, University of York. Previously, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the World Trade Institute, University of Bern and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada). He also held visiting positions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the University of International Business and Economics, both in Beijing.

Dimitrios Stroikos is LSE Fellow at the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), as well as Head of the Space Policy project at LSE IDEAS. He is also the editor-in-chief of Space Policy: An International Journal.

Simona Davidescu is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the University of York, working on environmental and energy policy, with a focus on the European Union and Central and Eastern Europe. She is also an Honorary Research Associate with the EU-Asia Institute at ESSCA, Angers, France and part of several research networks on energy policy, sustainability, and the green economy with UACES and ECPR.