China's Foreign Relations and the Survival of Autocracies [Hardcover]

The Chinese government has frequently been criticized for propping up anti-democratic governments. This book investigates the rise of China as an emerging authoritarian power. By comparing Chinas bilateral relations to three Asian developing countries  Burma, Cambodia and Mongolia  it examines how China targets specific groups of actors in autocracies versus non-autocracies. It illustrates how the Chinese non-interference policy translates into support for incumbent leaders in autocratic countries and how the Chinese government has thereby profited from exploiting secretive decision making in autocracies to realize its own external interests such as achieving access to natural resources. In a statistical analysis of the patterns of Chinese external cooperation and their impact on the survival of autocratic leaders, the book finds some evidence that China is more likely to target autocracies with economic cooperation. However, only some forms of bilateral interaction are found to increase the prospect of survival for autocratic leaders.

This important contribution to the understanding of both external factors of authoritarian endurance and Chinas foreign relations, a field of study still lacking systematic investigation, will be of great interest to students and researchers in Development Studies, Asian Studies, International Relations, and International Political Economy.

Part 1: Supporting Dictators. If so, why and how?  1. What we Know and why we Know so Little  2. Why Autocracies should have an Interest in the Prevalence of Authoritarianism  Part 2: External Exploitation: who, how and when?  3. How external exploitation materializes  4. Burma: Neither puppet, nor pawn  5. Cambodia: Rocking in Chinas soft underbelly  6. Mongolia: Between a rock and a hard place  7. Does China realize its intelC5