Tilman Pradt Libri

The narrative delves into the historical context and diplomatic efforts that paved the way for China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It highlights the essential arrangements made with Russia and Central Asian nations, addressing border disputes and establishing a framework for political cooperation and security. The book emphasizes how the successful diplomacy of the 1990s and 2000s was crucial for the development of the land route connecting China to Western Europe, ultimately framing BRI as a monumental geopolitical infrastructure project.

Exploring the pivotal role of non-governmental organizations in a globalized context, the book highlights their involvement in aid and relief efforts in impoverished nations, support for international institutions, and their function as watchdogs. It emphasizes the intricate relationships between NGOs and state agencies, illustrating how these organizations often rely on governmental support in various forms, thereby revealing the complexities of their operations and the interdependence between NGOs and governments.

This book analyses how China overcame its meagre reputation in the early 1990s to become an aggressively growing military power and rising threat to the international system. The author focuses on China’s new multilateral foreign policy approach, ambitious military build-up programme and economic cooperation initiatives. This book presents a much-needed comparative perspective of China in terms of foreign policy, seeking to develop analytical tools to assess China’s motivations and moves. The author suggests that understanding China’s new foreign policy, its tactics in multilateral organisations, and approaches to conflict resolutions are elementary to grasp the new realities of international relations, particularly relevant to newly established institutions in the evolving Asian political system which require basic knowledge for analysing the politics in this continent. This book uses an innovative approach, a qualitative analysis of China’s foreignpolicy addressing criteria of reputation management, to overcome the perceived ‘China threat’.