Shifting power in Asia–Pacific? The rise of China, Sino-US competition and regional middle power allegiance

One of the most prominent debates in International Relations (IR) in recent years has been around the rise of China and the nature of the country's power. It is surprising, therefore, that while there are many books whose titles combine ‘China’ with the words ‘power’ or ‘rise’, in reality almost none address the issue of China's power as a central theme. Moreover, those few which do—for example, David Shambaugh's China goes global: the partial power (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013; reviewed in International Affairs 89: 6, November 2013) or David M. Lampton's The three faces of Chinese power: might, money, and minds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008)—lack the methodologically sound and comprehensive approach of Enrico Fels's Shifting power in Asia–Pacific?. Fels's book can easily be seen as the most comprehensive and conceptually rigorous academic work currently available assessing China's power. That said, it is not without its shortcomings, but they do not detract from the book's significance.