China under Deng Xiaoping Book

In his account of China's economic, military and political rise within the East Asian system, David Kang makes the case that the analysis made by IR-realists is flat out wrong; East Asian states are not balancing China (and neither is the United States), not because they aren't able to, and not because they are putting their faith in the US. He goes on to show how a general lack of fear towards China's intentions is by far the dominant attitude among its neighbours, and through a mainly Constructivist approach he attempts to find the cause of this in the history and identities of each East Asian state.

It was nice to read a slightly contrarian take on the issue of China's rise, and Kang might have been fully on point ten years ago (I don't have the sufficient knowledge for assessing that), but the big drawback to this book is that the data employed here is now 11+ years old, and A LOT has changed since then...