State Formation through Emulation

Chin-Hao Huang is assistant professor of political science and head of studies for global affairs at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. His research and teaching focus on China's foreign relations, the international relations of East Asia, and international security. His books include Power, Restraint, and China's Rise (2022) and Identity in the Shadow of a Giant: How the Rise of China is Changing Taiwan (2021). David Kang is Maria Crutcher Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, where he is also director of the USC Korean Studies Institute. He researches East Asian security, the international relations of historical East Asia, and Korean politics.

• 1. Introduction: The East Asian Model of State Formation; 2. Theories of State Formation and Diffusion; 3. Phase 1 and Onwards: Hegemony, Bureaucracy, and Confucianism; 4. The Absence of Bellicist Pressures in State Formation, 400 – 800 CE; 5. Phase II: State Formation in Korea and Japan, 400 – 800 CE; 6. Korea and Japan over the Centuries; 7. Vietnam emerges, 10th – 14th Centuries; 8. Epistemic Communities and Regional Connections; 9. Who Doesn't Emulate? The Borderlands of the Central Asian Steppe; 10. Conclusion: East Asian Developmental States in the 20th Century. Appendix; References; Index.

International Relations needs to move beyond critiques of Eurocentrism to present big, positive alternative ideas. Few if any books in the field achieve this goal as well as State Formation in Historical East Asia. Huang and Kang's fresh, challenging and incredibly important thesis is that state-building in East Asia preceded that in Europe, and was the result of emulation rather than military competition. Jason Sharman, Sir Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations, University of Cambridge