Commissioned Book Review: Daniel Markey, China’s Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia
| Author | Georgi Asatryan |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221076276 |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Review |
Political Studies Review
2022, Vol. 20(3) NP9 –NP10
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
1076276PSW0010.1177/14789299221076276Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2022
Commissioned Book Review
China’s Western Horizon: Beijing
and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia by
Daniel Markey. New York and London:
Oxford University Press, 2020. 336 pp.,
$29.95 (hardcover), ISBN 9780190680190
This book is notable for paying close attention
to China’s relationships with its immediate
neighbors to t he West. Most books dealing with
China concentrate on its relations in the Pacific
and in Southeast Asia, as well as its global
impact. Daniel Markey is a Senior Research
Professor at Johns Hopkins University, with sig-
nificant association with practitioners and pol-
icy makers through the United States Institute
of peace. After discussing what the book calls
China’s “global ambitions,” the author looks at
the domestic implications of China’s relation-
ship with its Western neighbors. The focus is
on states with significant importance to China
within their respective regions: Pakistan in
South Asia, Kazakhstan in Central Asia, and
Iran in the Middle East. The book concludes
with a chapter on Chinese-–United States con-
frontation. The inclusion of neighboring states’
perspectives in the book distinguishes it from
recent literature on China such as Taylor
Fravel’s Active Defense or Michael Auslin’s
Asia’s New Geopolitics.
As with many inside-the-beltway works,
the book does not free itself from a US per-
spective. The author describes the growth of
China as “perhaps the most severe challenge in
history.” Cold War nostalgia for a time when
the chief opponent did not have the resources
to compete and where there was a clear divid-
ing line between East and West cannot substi-
tute for a proper response to China. Others
miss “the end of history” when US ideological
systems appeared set to be unopposed world-
wide. The author counsels using a selective,
issue-based differentiated strategy among
China’s Western neighbors in order to compete
with the PRC instead of a blanket policy (p. 9).
Markey attempts to understand what the
leaders of these states want from, fear about,
and expect from China. He tries to measure the
impact of Chinese investments, military moves,
and diplomatic overtures. In addition, he tries to
create a coherent picture of how China is seen
in their national histories and popular narra-
tives. In essence, the author is looking for
themes or issues for the United States to use to
contain China, with the words “global geopo-
litical competition” being used to obfuscate that
goal. The book argues that China is feared by its
partners and its neighbors, and that the United
States can use that fear to obstruct the Belt and
Road Initiative. For the author, the Belt and
Road Initiative is an attempt to extend China’s
building bubble abroad, as the country has
overbuilt new infrastructure such as airports
and cities. The loans ensnare its partners and
feed China’s strategy for global dominate (p. 2).
The chapter on Kazakhstan is an extension
of US discourses on Xinjiang. The author
claims that there were policies to “Sinicize”
Western China (p. 84). Kazakhstan is a target
as far as he is concerned for Chinese expan-
sionism. China is gaining influence at the
expense of Russia and others in the region. The
author counts on Russia resisting the expan-
sion of Chinese influence there (p. 81). The
author highlights the deep economic and politi-
cal ties between Russia and Kazakhstan, which
continued despite the ebbs and flows of energy
prices (p. 105). The author believes that Russia
and China will compete despite their close
relations but that an outright PRC–Russian
confrontation is unlikely (p. 108). Quoting the
perspective of an Australian diplomat, the
author believes that the Russian–Chinese
relationship was “tactical and instr umental”
because the two sides “share neither a long-
term vision of the world nor a common
understanding of their respective places in it”
To continue reading
Request your trial