China and Coexistence

A powerful survey highly recommended for any serious collection on China's politics and place in the world.

Nations lacking the military and economic clout to bring coercive measures to bear in support of their national interests must find other means. Peaceful coexistence is an attractive alternative that has been tried by a number of nations in modern history. None have used it more successfully than have the Chinese... Odgaard describes how China successfully applied this fundamental foreign policy over the last 40 years.

This well researched, substantive, and thought-provoking book is laid out well and is ways to read and digest. Whether or not you agree with the author's logic and conclusions, the book is worth the read for its superb analysis. Military and interagency professional, international relations and political science students and academics, as well as others interested in the emergence of China, its foreign policy, and its evolving role in international affairs would benefit from reading it.

Rather than dismissing the principle of (peaceful) coexistence as either propaganda or a necessary policy of a weak power, Liselotte Odgaard unravels the concept as the driving strategy behind China's foreign and national security policy and shows how it has been successful in both protecting and progressively maximizing China's interests.

A superior analysis of a topic of tremendous importance to scholars and policy makers alike.