China has shifted its foreign policy from one that avoided engagement in international organizations to one that is now embracing them. These moves present a new challenge to international relations theory.

How will the global community be affected by the engagement of this massive global power with international institutions?

This new study explores why China has chosen to abandon its previous doctrine of institutional isolation and details how it is currently unable to balance American power unilaterally and details an indirect path to greater power. In addition, it includes the first major analysis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, comprising China, Russia and most of Central Asia.

In contrast to many works on the "rise of China" question, which place an emphasis on her material goods and powers, this book delivers a new approach. It shows how the unique barriers Beijing is facing are preventing the country from taking the traditional paths of territorial expansion and political-economic domination in order to develop as a great power. One of these barriers is the United States and its inherent military and economic strength. The other is the existence of nuclear weapons, which makes direct great power conflict unacceptably costly. China has therefore opted for a new path, using institutions as stepping stones to great power status.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, world politics, world history and Asia.