Seminar Abstract

China is today regarded as a great power in world politics, and there are growing expectations that it will do more to address global challenges. Yet relatively little is known about how China sees itself in this role and understands its obligations to the world.

In China’s Global Identity, Hoo Tiang Boon embarks on the first sustained study of China’s great power identity. The author examines this ongoing internal debate through Chinese sources and reveals the underestimated role the United States has had in this dialogue. Unraveling the big power politics, history, events, and ideas behind the emergence and evolution of China’s great power identity, the book provides fresh insights into the real-world issues of how China might use its power as it grows. The question of China’s role as a great power has important implications for its diplomacy and trajectory, as well as the responses of states adjusting to these shifts. The book offers a new lens for scholars, policy professionals, diplomats, and students in the fields of international relations and Asian affairs to make sense of China’s rise and its impact on America and global order.

About the Author

Hoo Tiang Boon is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Masters in Asian Studies Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Oxford. He is the lecturer of the Masters courses, China’s Foreign and Security Policy and Cross-Strait Relations, at RSIS. Dr. Hoo is the author of several publications on China, cross-strait relations and US-China relations. His latest books include: China’s Global Identity: Considering the Responsibilities of Great Power (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2018); and Chinese Foreign Policy under Xi (ed.) (New York & London: Routledge, 2017). Dr. Hoo has been involved in several Track-II initiatives, including the Singapore-US Strategic Dialogue, the Singapore-France Dialogue on China, the Korea-Singapore Forum and the Network of ASEAN Defence and Security Institutions. Dr. Hoo was formerly a visiting fellow at the China Foreign Affairs University, a visiting scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and a visiting researcher at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.