Leo Suryadinata, ed. Rising China’s Soft Power in Southeast Asia: Impact on Education and Popular Culture. Singapore: ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute, 2024.

This edited volume by Leo Suryadinata continues his leadership in producing scholarship on China-Southeast Asia relations and the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.As a sequel to the edited volume Rising China and Chinese New Migrants in Southeast Asia (Suryadinata and Loh 2022), this book builds on the research of a network of scholars in Southeast Asia on China Southeast Asia relations but goes one step further to focuses specifically on China's recent rise of soft power in education, language, and art in Southeast Asia.With contributors mostly hailing from Southeast Asia, this book comprehensively examines the recent intensification of educa tional engagements between China and Southeast Asia and their broader implications on Chinese soft power.In this book review, I will first provide a general summary of each chapter of the book and then I will provide more detailed review on a couple of select chapters that I personally find very interesting and worth pursuing further analysis on.Finally, I will offer a reflection on how this edited volume informs us about China's increased soft power through education in Southeast Asia.The book is divided into four parts.The first part provides a general overview, focusing on China's historical and contemporary relations with the overseas Chinese community in the region and their implications for understanding how renewed education engagement between China and Southeast Asia means for the former's soft power in the latter.Building on this foun dation, the second part examines China's soft power through education in Mainland Southeast Asia, while the third part continues this theme, shifting the focus to Maritime Southeast Asia.Finally, the fourth part delves into the role of popular culture in advancing China's soft power, rounding out an interesting collage of perspectives on its impact in Southeast Asia.The first three chapters collectively examine China's history of engagement with the over seas Chinese community in Southeast Asia, through various institutional, educational, and cul