Rising China has been reshaping world order for the last two decades, but this volume argues that we cannot accurately understand rising China's global impacts without first investigating whether and how its growing power resources are translated into actual influence over other states' choices and policies. Concentrating on the developing countries in East and South Asia, where the power asymmetry is greatest and China ought to have the biggest influence, the volume investigates China's influence in bilateral relationships, and on key political actors from these countries within key issue areas and international institutions.

Using an influence framework, the volume demonstrates how China tends to try to gain the support of smaller and weaker countries without forcing them to change their preferences or to act against their own interests. China does purposefully coerce, induce, or persuade others to behave in certain ways, but whether and the extent to which it succeeds is determined as much by the reactions, political context and decision-making processes of the target states, as it is by how skilfully Chinese actors deploy these tools. The contributors detail how China's influence even over these weaker states does not result from easy applications of power; rather it tends to be mediated through the competing interests of target state actors, the imperatives of other existing security and economic relationships, and more complex strategic thinking than we might expect. The book's findings carry lessons for conceptual refinement, as well as policy implications for those coping with China's reshaping of international order.

1. Introduction, Evelyn Goh
2. Chinese Assessments of China's Influence in Developing Asia, Michael A. Glosny
Part One: Small Developing Asian States
3. Myanmar's Management of China's Influence: From Mutual Benefit to Mutual Dependence, Evelyn Goh and David Steinberg
4. China's Influence over Vietnam in War and Peace, Cheng Guan Ang
5. The Domestic Mediations of China's Influence in the Philippines, Aileen S. P. Baviera
6. China's Influence in Sri Lanka: Negotiating Development, Authoritarianism, and Regional Transformation, Neil Devotta
Part Two: Issues and Institutions
7. China's Influence in the South China Sea and the Failure of Joint Development, Ralf Emmers
8. China's Hydropower Expansion and Influence Over Environmental Governance in Mainland Southeast Asia, Pichamon Yeophantong
9. Chinese Sunshine: Beijing's Influence on Economic Change in North Korea, James Reilly
10. China's Influence in Asian Monetary Affairs, John D. Ciorciari
11. China's Influence on Developing Asian States During the Creation of the United Nations Human Rights Council, 2005-7, Rosemary Foot and Rana Siu Inboden
Part Three: Extensions
12. Analysing Chinese Influence: Challenges and Opportunities, Scott L. Kastner
13. Conclusion, Evelyn Goh