China's alliances are also the result of its fear of states ganging up on it - especially in its immediate region, more specifically the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait. While recognizing that the presence of the US military in the Asia-Pacific has been beneficial to China, in that it prevented the reemergence of an expeditionary Japanese military, and despite the fact that in recent years Beijing has, in certain respects, come to accept the reality of that presence, it nevertheless retains an existential (perhaps not altogether unjustified) fear of encirclement. This, Gill contends, explains its active participation in the North Korea disarmament talks, where failure could spark rearmament in Japan and perhaps military action against Pyongyang, which in either case would result in a large concentration of foreign military forces in its vicinity and the possibility, should war break out, that tens of thousands of North Koreans would seek refuge in China and threaten its domestic stability.
As with its newfound enthusiasm for regional alliances, the modernization of China's military, Gill argues, could primarily be a reaction to its perception of being surrounded, which in part stems from the introduction of US missile defense systems in Japan and Taiwan. The stockpiling and refinement of China's conventional missile arsenal - including the 1,300 it is aiming at Taiwan - is largely, albeit not solely, a response to its perception that the US and its allies are seeking to deny China its deterrent capability. The nexus of pro-US regional alliances and missile defense also helps explain why China and Russia, which both feel threatened by encroachment, have in recent years not only resolved longstanding territorial disputes but have become allies.
In all, Gill's book shows us that in certain, if not most, areas China can be a pragmatic player that will act as a responsible stakeholder. Its increasing participation in peacekeeping missions, even if at times nothing more than a means to improve its image abroad, is also a positive development in terms of its desire for multilateralism. Through well-calibrated diplomacy and better attention to its interests, Gill argues that China can be goaded in the right direction on issues that so far have not led to success, such as in its relations with "rogue states" like Sudan and Iran.
On a more pessimistic note, Gill shows us that Beijing has retained its tendency to use compliance with international norms as a bargaining chip, which represents a failure to see treaties and multilateralism as a common good and could cast doubt on its contention that it is rising "peacefully." Another worrying area - one that Gill leaves largely unexplored - is Beijing's inclination to act irrationally whenever domestic issues or Taiwan are concerned.
While Rising Star convincingly argues that China has made tremendous progress on the international front, all those developments could quickly be undermined should its domestic situation - perennially the main concern of decision-makers in Beijing, around which everything else, including foreign policy, revolves - deteriorate. Only then, perhaps, would the world see China's other, dreaded "rise."
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