13 Aug 2021    Reports/ Presentations
Bogdanova, Iryna


Book Review: Sanctions with Chinese Characteristics: Rhetoric and Restraint in China’s Diplomacy

Book review of Angela Poh's "Sanctions with Chinese Characteristics: Rhetoric and Restraint in China’s Diplomacy" (published by Amsterdam University Press) by Iryna Bogdanova, published in the South African Journal of International Affairs, Volume 28 (2), 2021.

China’s more assertive use of diverse instruments of economic statecraft – economic inducements and economic sanctions – surfaced almost a decade ago. Commentators slowly began to take note. In 2013, for example, James Reilly asserted that ‘China today is using economic statecraft more frequently, more assertively, and in more diverse fashion than ever before’. China’s use of economic incentives to secure its influence over geopolitically significant countries and regions has subsequently been investigated by a variety of other scholars. Some have even described China as ‘the world’s leading practitioner of geoeconomics’. However, the existing literature has mainly overlooked the coercive aspects of such economic statecraft and thus there is a dearth of in-depth studies on China’s use of economic sanctions. In part, this paucity of scholarly research can be explained by the inherent features of Chinese sanctions, a point to which I return below.

Read the full review by clicking on the link below.

Book Review: Sanctions with Chinese Characteristics: Rhetoric and Restraint in China’s Diplomacy