On Thursday, April 28, 2016, the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs will host a book spotlight focused on the book Chinese Economic Statecraft: Commercial Actors, Grand Strategy, and State Control, written by Dr. William J. Norris, assistant professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University. Dr. Norris will be joined by Dr. Ren Mu, associate professor at the Bush School, and Dr. Hiroki Takeuchi, associate professor at Southern Methodist University, for a panel discussion on the topic of Chinese economic statecraft. The event will begin at 6:00 p.m. at the George Bush Presidential Library Orientation Theater.
In the book, published by Cornell University Press, Norris introduces an innovative theory that pinpoints how states employ economic tools of national power to pursue their strategic objectives. Norris shows what Chinese economic statecraft is, how it works, and why it is more or less effective. The book has already received praise from scholars in US-China relations, including praise from Dr. Thomas G. Moore, University of Cincinnati author of China in the World Market.
“Chinese Economic Statecraft is a timely, compelling, first-rate piece of scholarship,” said Moore. “William J. Norris’ argument, which will be widely read and discussed among political scientists, economists, and scholars of Asian studies, is presented in a way that will also engage policy-oriented observers and laypeople interested in the book primarily for its insights into the factors shaping China’s economic behavior.”
Dr. William Norris is currently an assistant professor of Chinese foreign and security policy at the Bush School, where he teaches graduate-level courses in Chinese domestic politics, East Asian security, and Chinese foreign policy. He is also a nonresident associate with the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, where his work examines the potential for a conventional US-China conflict to escalate to the nuclear realm. Dr. Norris has been a postdoctoral research associate at the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs and a fellow in the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program, a joint program created by the two universities to foster the study of China’s foreign relations. He completed his doctoral work in the Security Studies Program in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he specialized in the confluence of economics and security, focusing on the role of economics in contemporary Chinese grand strategy.
The event is open to the public, but reservations are recommended.
