Rising Power, Limited Influence

Indrajit Roy is Senior Lecturer at the University of York's Department of Politics and co-director of the York Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre. He has previously held the ESRC Future Research Leader Fellowship at the Oxford Department of International Development and a Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. He is also the Executive Trustee of the UK Political Studies Association and Council Member of the Development Studies Association.Jappe Eckhardt is Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at the Department of Politics, University of York. Previously, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the World Trade Institute, University of Bern and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada). He also held visiting positions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the University of International Business and Economics, both in Beijing.Dimitrios Stroikos is LSE Fellow at the Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), as well as Head of the Space Policy project at LSE IDEAS. He is also the editor-in-chief of Space Policy: An International Journal.Simona Davidescu is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the University of York, working on environmental and energy policy, with a focus on the European Union and Central and Eastern Europe. She is also an Honorary Research Associate with the EU-Asia Institute at ESSCA, Angers, France and part of several research networks on energy policy, sustainability, and the green economy with UACES and ECPR.

Since 2012 and the era of Xi Jinping, China's foreign policy and its actions have been increasingly scrutinised. This collection of essays looks at the important example of Europe. Through diverse, data rich, well-argued case studies, the authors present a picture of a China which has indeed grown more powerful, but also more complex in its impact and motives. Avoiding easy conclusions, this work offers much needed analysis based on solid empirical research, and sheds light in an area too often dominated by speculation and lack of evidence.

• Indrajit Roy and Ran Hu: Introduction: Chinese investments in Europe: Power, influence, and the Liberal International Order 1: Yu Jie: Country, corporates, and the construct of BRI: The roles of Chinese state-owned enterprises 2: Ran Hu: State transformation and China's Belt and Road Initiative 3: Ágnes Szunomár: Illiberal rationalism? The role of political factors in China's growing (economic) footprint in Hungary 4: Filippo Boni: China's normative influence in Europe: the case of Sino-Italian relations under the Belt and Road Initiative 5: Dimitrios Stroikos: China's engagement with Greece under the BRI: Economics, politics, and international imperatives 6: Malgorzata Jakimów: Between normative influence and securitisation dynamic: China's engagement in the Visegrad Group 7: Nicholas Crawford: Chinese economic diplomacy in the Western Balkans: Limited strategy, limited influence 8: Simona Davidescu: Nuclear dreams or nightmares? Chinese investments in the energy sector in the UK and Romania 9: Jan Knoerich: The political dimensions of Chinese outward FDI and their implications for the Liberal International Order 10: Catherine Jones: Catalyst for stasis? China's engagement with developing states and its influence on international development assistance Indrajit Roy, Jappe Eckhardt, Simona Davidescu, and Dimitrios Stroikos: Conclusion: Chinese power meets European agency: Revisiting the Liberal International Order?