Amirmohammad Esmaeili, Secretary-General of the Iranian Institute for Belt and Road Studies

1. Living Wisely (An Introduction to Ancient Chinese Philosophy)

Author: Bryan W. Van Norden
Translator: Ahmad Rezaei Jamkarani
Publisher: Morvarid Publications

This book is one of the clearest and most well-structured introductory works for understanding the Chinese worldview. It was published by Morvarid Publications in an accurate translation by Ahmad Rezaei Jamkarani. The title “Living Wisely” goes to the heart of ancient Chinese philosophy. Unlike Greek philosophy, which was often concerned with abstract and ontological questions, the fundamental concern of Chinese thinkers during the turbulent Warring States period was practical and concrete. The central question shared by these schools was: What is the Dao (the Way)? In other words: How should one live, and how can a fragmented society be brought toward order and harmony?

Van Norden analytically examines the major intellectual currents of ancient China, known as the Hundred Schools of Thought:
• Confucianism: Emphasis on moral virtues, filial piety, and ritual (li). The author shows how Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi sought to build a model of ethical and merit-based government.
• Mohism: An examination of the thought of Mozi, who, as an early utilitarian thinker, proposed the radical idea of “universal love”—equal concern for all human beings—and opposition to aggressive warfare, in contrast to the hierarchical outlook of Confucianism.
• Daoism: A school centered on wu-wei (action through non-forcing), liberation from artificial social constraints, and harmony with the natural flow of existence.
• Legalism/Fajia: A strongly realist current, led by Han Feizi, which held that morality was insufficient for governing a state and that state authority should rest on strong institutions, strict laws, rewards, punishments, and the unquestioned power of the ruler.

The special value of Van Norden’s work lies in the fact that he does not treat these texts as museum pieces. Through concrete examples, he shows how these debates emerged. Understanding these intellectual roots—especially the historical interweaving of Confucian moralism and the hard realism of the Legalists—provides a powerful analytical tool for understanding contemporary China’s strategic culture, diplomatic logic, model of state governance, and even patterns of social communication.

2. The China Model (Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy)

Author: Daniel A. Bell
Translator: Arash Bidollahkhani
Publisher: Elm Publications

One of the most important and controversial works on contemporary systems of governance, this book offers a distinctive analytical framework for researchers and policymakers seeking to understand the logic of China’s development and its major global initiatives. Daniel Bell attempts to examine China’s political system according to its own internal logic rather than through normative judgments rooted in Western perspectives.

Bell, who taught for many years at Tsinghua University in Beijing, argues that China’s political system is not simply a “closed authoritarianism,” but an evolved form of political meritocracy with deep Confucian roots. He maintains that Western electoral models at the national level can often lead to populism, politicians’ short-termism, and an inability to plan for the long term. By contrast, the China Model emphasizes the use of a complex party hierarchy to bring leaders with practical experience and demonstrated managerial ability to the highest levels of power.

The author explains China’s governance architecture at three levels:
• Democracy at the micro level (villages and towns): direct public participation in selecting local representatives to address everyday problems.
• Experimentation and trial-and-error at the meso level (provinces and municipalities): an environment for economic innovation and competition among provincial officials to attract investment and develop infrastructure. Officials who successfully implement major industrial or technological projects can advance through the hierarchy.
• Meritocracy at the macro level (Central Committee and Politburo): national leaders are selected not through advertising campaigns, but after decades of rigorous evaluation and experience in managing crises.

3. The Art of War

Author: Sun Tzu
Translator: Mehdi Samsar
Publisher: Jami Publications

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, written by the ancient Chinese strategist and military commander Sun Tzu (around the fifth century BCE), is considered one of the most influential strategic texts in human history. Composed of 13 concise chapters, it has moved far beyond the battlefield and become a foundational text in geopolitics, diplomacy, business management, and commercial negotiations.

The central principle of his philosophy is avoidance of direct, prolonged, and costly confrontation. He regards physical conflict as a sign of failure in planning and defines true strategic skill as psychological, informational, and strategic mastery over an opponent.

His complex ideas are expressed through simple yet profound principles:
• Victory without war (the highest level of strategy): The book’s best-known principle is that defeating an enemy without battle represents the highest form of skill. In today’s world, this can be seen in soft power, economic diplomacy, and the creation of mutual dependencies—such as infrastructure networks and trade corridors—to neutralize resistance before direct conflict begins.
• The importance of information and accurate knowledge: Knowing both the enemy and oneself is presented as essential to success. Sun Tzu argues that victory is won in the mind and in planning, not on the battlefield. Accurate assessment of one’s resources, knowledge of an opponent’s weaknesses, and analysis of the environment—including geography and time—are prerequisites for strategic action.
• Flexibility and the principle of deception: War is built on deception. Concealing real intentions, remaining unpredictable, and adapting rapidly to changing conditions are central to his doctrine. Sun Tzu compares the strategist to flowing water, which takes the shape of its container and terrain and always finds the path of least resistance.
• Economy of time and logistics management: Prolonging any campaign, military or commercial, consumes resources and exhausts an organization. Efficient supply chains, speed of action, and optimal use of organizational energy are essential to achieving rapid and decisive success.

For understanding China’s strategic culture and contemporary foreign-policy behavior, reading this book is indispensable. Many major global initiatives, geoeconomic rivalries, and maritime strategies reflect this logic: expanding influence and prevailing in competition by gaining an early advantage in strategic markets without entering direct confrontation. In large-scale project management and business development, managers likewise use Sun Tzu’s framework for market positioning, efficient team management, and success in complex negotiations.

4. A Concise History of China (From Ancient Dynasties to Today’s Modern Superpower)

Author: Linda Jaivin
Translator: Roubert Safarian
Publisher: Markaz Publications

Linda Jaivin, who has spent decades researching and living in China, undertakes the difficult task of condensing more than three thousand years of turbulent history—from creation myths and ancient dynasties to the modern era and the presidency of Xi Jinping—into a relatively compact volume. The result is an engaging narrative free from unnecessary academic complexity that offers a broad picture of the evolution of Chinese civilization.

Jaivin does not view history merely as a sequence of rulers and wars; she follows persistent cultural and identity patterns across the centuries. Her approach has several notable features:
• Demystifying the image of an isolated China: One of the book’s major achievements is challenging the common belief that China has historically been closed and isolated. Jaivin shows through historical evidence that Chinese empires maintained dynamic connections with the surrounding world through trade, war, and cultural exchange, especially along the ancient Silk Road.
• Dynastic cycles and the “Mandate of Heaven”: The book examines the rise and fall of imperial dynasties through the ancient concept of the Mandate of Heaven. Natural disasters, famine, and administrative corruption were interpreted as signs that rulers had lost heavenly legitimacy, helping explain the collapse of one dynasty and the emergence of another. Understanding this pattern is important for understanding the political psychology of Chinese society.
• A comprehensive and inclusive narrative: Unlike traditional histories focused mainly on the court, Jaivin brings marginalized voices into the story, paying particular attention to women, minorities, rebels, and lower social classes, and showing how Chinese society developed through the interaction of all these forces.
• From the Century of Humiliation to the modern superpower: The final chapters examine China’s painful transition from the period known as the “Century of National Humiliation”—marked by Western incursions, the Opium Wars, and the loss of national sovereignty—to Communist Party consolidation and the economic rise of recent decades. Jaivin explains how restoring China’s historic position as the “Middle Kingdom” has become a major driver of Beijing’s contemporary domestic and foreign policies.

5. Politics and Government in China: From Empire to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

Author: Abolfazl Olamaeifar
Editor: Mohammad Amir Jalali
Publisher: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press and Publications, 1403 [2024–2025]

The publication of this book by the publishing arm of Iran’s diplomatic establishment demonstrates the strategic importance of accurately understanding China’s domestic structures for Iranian analysts, diplomats, and researchers. The work seeks to move beyond common stereotypes and provide a detailed examination of the actual mechanisms of power in Beijing.

The author focuses on several fundamental dimensions:
• Historical and institutional transition: The book examines the turbulent transition from the imperial system and the collapse of the Qing dynasty to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, showing how modern bureaucratic structures developed on the foundations of older traditions of governance.
• The architecture of power (state-party relations): A central element of China studies is understanding the interweaving of the Communist Party and the state. The book explains institutions such as the Central Committee, Politburo, and Central Military Commission and examines the circulation of political elites.
• Socialism with Chinese characteristics: This concept, established during the era of Deng Xiaoping and brought to a mature ideological stage under Xi Jinping, forms the core of the book. The author explains how Beijing has combined a market economy with centralized political control and large-scale state planning.

6. New China (From the Opium Wars to the Present)

Author: Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer
Translator: Vahik Kashishzadeh
Publisher: Mehrandish Publications

Schmidt-Glintzer begins his narrative with a traumatic turning point: the humiliating defeat of the Qing Empire by Britain and the imposition of unequal treaties, which initiated a period known in Chinese political discourse as the “Century of National Humiliation.” The book effectively shows that China’s subsequent transformations—from the fall of the empire and the turmoil of the republican period to the Communist victory in 1949 and the economic reforms of recent decades—can be understood as continuing responses and sustained efforts by an ancient civilization to overcome historical humiliation, restore national sovereignty, and return to a central position in the world.

• A paradigm shift in identity: The author examines how China was forced to abandon its traditional image as the “center of the world” (Tianxia) and adapt to the realities of the Westphalian system and Western imperialism in order to survive.
• Continuity amid rupture: Contrary to analyses that portray modern Chinese history as a series of radical breaks, the book shows how traditional and Confucian ideas continued beneath different regimes—republican and communist—and influenced political decision-making.
• The rise toward superpower status: The final sections address China’s difficult path of economic development and its contemporary political challenges. The author analyzes how, after decades of isolation and internal turbulence, China has returned to the world stage as a decisive actor through a state-led development model.

Understanding China’s history after the Opium Wars is essential for understanding Beijing’s current strategies. For broad academic research and literature reviews on topics such as Iran and corridor diplomacy in the context of China’s global initiatives, this work offers a powerful historical framework. The historical trajectory makes clear that projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative are not merely improvised economic schemes; they are also geostrategic instruments rooted in a long-term historical mindset aimed at securing supply chains, overcoming vulnerabilities associated with the “Century of Humiliation,” and consolidating power across Eurasia.

7. The Patient Dragon

Author: Fereydoun Vardinejad
Publisher: Ettelaat Publications

The Patient Dragon can be regarded as one of the important Persian-language books for understanding the historical and intellectual trajectory of the rise of contemporary China. Its strength is that it does not examine China solely through the lenses of economics or foreign policy; it also seeks to explain the historical and intellectual roots of China’s behavior today.

The book is organized into five main sections. The first three address Chinese history and thought in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods. It then moves to the post-1949 period and concludes with an examination of contemporary China and its transformation. One important section examines China’s transformation after Mao Zedong, particularly the rise of Deng Xiaoping. The author explains how China adopted reform and opening-up policies in the late 1970s and shifted the center of policymaking from a primary focus on ideology toward economic growth and increasing national wealth. From the book’s perspective, this change was one of the main foundations of China’s transformation into a major economic power in the following decades.

Another notable feature is that the book does not separate China’s economic development from its social and political transformations. The authors explain how rapid economic growth and China’s changing position in the international system confronted the country’s elites with new questions about political structure, the legitimacy of the Communist Party, and the governance of society.

8. Tao Te Ching

Author: Lao Tzu
Translator: Farshid Gahremani
Publisher: Mes Publications

A masterpiece of ancient Chinese wisdom and a foundational text of Daoism, this book is attributed to the renowned philosopher Lao Tzu. Despite its small size and aphoristic form, it is regarded as one of the world’s profound philosophical and mystical texts. The book consists of 81 short passages that invite human beings to return to fundamental harmony with nature, free themselves from artificial constraints, and understand the flowing order of the world known as the Tao (the Way).

Farshid Gahremani’s translation seeks to convey the essence of this ancient text in clear and intimate language while remaining faithful to its poetic and mystical weight, avoiding both excessive rhetorical complexity and artificial archaism. Through an engaging and contemplative prose style, he makes the text’s profound concepts accessible to contemporary Persian readers.

• Wu-wei, or effortless action: Wu-wei is often translated as “non-action,” but it fundamentally means acting without imposing one’s personal will, without force, and without exhausting struggle. Lao Tzu argues that much human suffering arises from attempts to forcibly control events and manipulate the natural course of the world. When ambition becomes quiet and a person moves in harmony with the rhythm of existence, things can unfold with minimal friction. It resembles a boat that aligns its sail with the wind rather than rowing against the current.
• The wisdom of water and the power of softness over hardness: One of the book’s most striking metaphors is water. Water always chooses the lowest places—places others avoid—yet through its softness and flow, no hard rock or solid mountain can resist its erosion forever. The Tao Te Ching suggests that rigidity and hardness are signs of death and stagnation, whereas flexibility, acceptance, humility, and softness are qualities of authentic life and lasting victory.
• Simplicity, integrity, and freedom from deceptive desires: The book calls society back to original simplicity and a simple way of life. Lao Tzu shows how the desire to accumulate wealth, fame, artificial honors, and rigid value categories creates anxiety, conflict, and human decline. True wealth, he argues, is contentment and inner sufficiency: recognizing what is enough and understanding that without social masks and endless competition, one is already whole.
• The quality and approach of Farshid Gahremani’s translation: Tao Te Ching is multilayered, enigmatic, and concise, and literal translation can easily produce obscure or excessively dry texts. Gahremani avoids heavy philosophical terminology and uses polished, tranquil language. His translation builds a bridge between the lyrical language of the original and contemporary understanding, allowing readers to enter the contemplative atmosphere of the work directly.

9. China’s Global Initiatives: The Key to Understanding “Xiplomacy” (Content Analysis and Full Texts of Xi Jinping’s Four Global Initiatives)

Publisher: China Studies Center, Khaneh Andishevarzan

Compiled and edited by the China Studies Center of Khaneh Andishevarzan, this work is a reference and strategic resource for researchers, diplomats, and professionals working in foreign policy and international political economy. It seeks to decode the logic of Chinese global governance in the Xi Jinping era and examine the concept of “Xiplomacy”—a term describing Beijing’s shift from Deng Xiaoping’s traditional strategy of “hiding capabilities and biding time” toward active engagement, international norm-making, and the provision of global public goods by an emerging power.

The work’s fundamental value lies in presenting both a conceptual framework and first-hand data. By combining discourse analysis of Xi Jinping’s statements with careful translations of foundational documents, the authors show how China seeks through four initiatives to construct a multilateral and alternative platform to the hegemonic mechanisms of the Western order and to create an inseparable link among security, development, and civilizational identity.

• Focus on the four dimensions of Beijing’s new-order architecture: the Belt and Road Initiative as a platform for infrastructure and economic connectivity; the Global Development Initiative focused on sustainable development; the Global Security Initiative as a cooperative model based on coexistence; and the Global Civilization Initiative, which promotes civilizational diversity and rejects the universalization of liberal norms.
• Direct access to primary documents: A major research advantage is the inclusion of the full texts and official translations of statements and documents related to the four initiatives, allowing researchers to examine the key vocabulary and conceptual language of the Chinese Communist Party without Western media filters.
• Decoding the cognitive core of Xiplomacy: Through detailed content analysis, the book argues that concepts such as a community with a shared future for humanity, balancing development and security, and rejecting bloc confrontation are not merely propaganda slogans but elements of China’s policy roadmap for shaping a post-Western order in the Global South.
• Practical relevance for policymaking and bilateral relations, including Iran-China relations: The collection provides a deeper understanding of Beijing’s expectations, priorities, and behavioral frameworks and can help experts and decision-makers redefine and adjust national interests and strategic-commercial relations in the context of China’s global initiatives.

10. The Essence of Chinese Culture

Author: Lou Yulie
Translator: Ehsan Doust-Mohammadi
Publisher: Kouhsar Publications

This book by Professor Lou Yulie, one of the prominent contemporary philosophers and senior scholars of Peking University, translated by China-studies researcher Ehsan Doust-Mohammadi, provides a comprehensive and first-hand introduction to the foundations of Chinese thought, worldview, and civilization. Unlike works that examine China solely from an external perspective or through Western Orientalist lenses, it is an indigenous, intra-civilizational attempt to answer a fundamental question: What is the essence of the Chinese spirit, and how does the Chinese person understand and organize the world?

Professor Lou does not treat classical Chinese traditions as static museum pieces. Instead, he demonstrates the living continuity between ancient philosophy and the social and political behavior of contemporary Chinese people. Doust-Mohammadi’s careful translation from Chinese conveys the civilization’s key terms and concepts with high lexical precision, making the book valuable for students and researchers of philosophy and international relations as well as professionals engaged in business and communication with China.

• An authentic, endogenous account of the trinity of Chinese thought: Rather than reducing Chinese thought, the book explains the complementary relationship among the three major traditions—Confucianism (moral and social order), Daoism (harmony with nature and softness), and Chinese Buddhism (inner peace and liberation)—as dimensions of Chinese cultural identity.
• Explaining “harmony without uniformity”: A central theme is the concept of harmony and the balance of yin and yang in resolving conflicts. It shows that, in Chinese culture, differences do not necessarily lead to confrontation and hostility; they can instead provide the basis for achieving a higher balance.
• Linking intellectual traditions to material culture and everyday life: The author goes beyond abstract discussion and depicts the reflection of the Chinese worldview in architecture, traditional medicine, calligraphy, poetry, and social etiquette, allowing readers to see this ancient wisdom in everyday life.
• Terminological precision and direct translation from Chinese: Doust-Mohammadi’s command of specialized literature and the semantic weight of classical vocabulary allows profound concepts to be conveyed to Persian readers without conceptual obscurity or distortion.

11. The Tianxia Theory: A New World Order from China’s Perspective

Author: Zhao Tingyang
Translator: Ali-Mohammad Sabeghi
Publisher: Alhoda International Publications

Tianxia, written by one of the leading contemporary political philosophers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is a foundational and unconventional work in political philosophy and international relations. It can be read as an intellectual manifesto for Beijing’s rethinking of world order and as a serious philosophical challenge to Western theoretical hegemony. By reviving the ancient concept of Tianxia—“all under heaven”—Zhao argues that the Westphalian system based on nation-states, great-power rivalry, and international anarchy is inherently inadequate for solving twenty-first-century global crises because today’s world lacks a genuinely global order in which collective interests take precedence over isolated national interests.

The strategic value of the work lies in its theoretical ambition. Zhao is not merely a critic of the West; he proposes a holistic ontology in which the initial unit of analysis is the whole world rather than separate national units. Ali-Mohammad Sabeghi’s fluent translation and the publication by Alhoda International make this strategic text accessible to Iranian researchers and policy scholars and provide an unusual opportunity to understand the philosophical roots of China’s official concept of a “community with a shared future for humanity.”

• Global holism versus individualism and Westphalian state-centrism: Zhao criticizes game theory, Hobbesian thought, and traditional realism, arguing that durable order emerges only when politics begins from the world as a whole, with each member’s interests understood as a function of the common good.
• A philosophy of inclusiveness and rejection of “us versus them”: Tianxia is based on comprehensive inclusion. No identity boundary is inherently closed to others, and no country is permanently defined as a structural enemy or “Other”; conflicts are instead incorporated into a broader framework of harmonization.
• Redefining sovereignty and political legitimacy through “general acceptability”: The book revisits the ancient idea of the Mandate of Heaven (Tianming) in modern terms. A political system is legitimate when it provides welfare, security, and order for all people under heaven, rather than relying merely on coercive military power or formal mechanisms of imposition.
• Intellectual genealogy of Beijing’s contemporary geopolitical discourse: The work offers a key to understanding the philosophical foundations of projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the community with a shared future for humanity, showing that China’s official diplomacy is not simply a propaganda package but a contemporary reconstruction of a millennia-old philosophical tradition.

12. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap

Author: Yuen Yuen Ang
Translator: Mohammad-Saeed Nouri-Naeini
Publisher: Ney Publications

This acclaimed work by Yuen Yuen Ang, professor of political economy at the University of Michigan, is among the most innovative and unconventional studies in development economics and comparative political economy. Challenging the “Western development orthodoxy” and the classic dichotomy of good institutions versus economic growth—the chicken-and-egg puzzle of development—the book offers a new explanation of how China moved from a poor and severely constrained country after the Mao era to the world’s second-largest economy. Ang argues that China’s development was not the result of a comprehensive, predetermined plan dictated by an authoritarian centralized state, but of a complex adaptive and coevolutionary process between markets and government.

The book’s scholarly value lies in challenging linear and static theories, including the institutionalist argument associated with Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. Ang shows that developing countries do not necessarily need to install perfect Western-style institutions before growth can begin. China instead “used what it had”—including weak and informal institutions—to activate market creation and then upgraded its institutions as wealth increased. The fluent and expert Persian translation by Dr. Mohammad-Saeed Nouri-Naeini, a professor of economics at Shahid Beheshti University and former Iranian representative to the FAO, makes the work a coherent and strategic resource for academics, policymakers, and development analysts in Iran.

• Coevolution instead of linear causality: Markets and government institutions do not simply create one another in a straight line; they mutually shape and adapt to one another. Weak institutions can initiate emerging markets, which then generate demand and financial resources for institutional reform and modernization.
• “Directed improvisation”: Drawing on hundreds of interviews and field data, the author shows that China’s development architecture was neither completely top-down nor an unregulated free-for-all. Beijing defined broad lines, overarching goals, and a safe operating space, while local officials and cadres were allowed to innovate, experiment, and adapt to local conditions.
• Using weak institutions for development: In contrast to the World Bank’s “good governance” prescription, which encourages poor countries to imitate rich-country standards, China used traditional capacities, informal relationships, and existing structures to reduce transaction costs and overcome early investment barriers.
• Lessons beyond China for the Global South: The work provides developing countries, including Iran, with an analytical framework for understanding how local capacities can be activated to escape stagnation and poverty without falling into institutional dead ends or adopting externally imposed and inappropriate prescriptions.

13. A History of Chinese Political Thought

Author: Yongmin Kim
Translator: Ali Rabiei
Publisher: Nimaj Publications

This is a profound, structured, and comprehensive account of the genealogy of political wisdom in Chinese civilization. Rather than treating Chinese thought selectively or reductively, Kim offers a historical and analytical narrative from antiquity and the formation of the empires through the decline of the imperial system and its encounter with modernity. He addresses a fundamental question: How, over the centuries, did Chinese thinkers and statesmen conceptualize power, political legitimacy, social order, civic virtue, and justice, and how did they respond to the crises of their times?

The book’s major strength is the author’s precise theoretical and academic approach, which reflects institutional logic and discursive dynamics within political thought. Moving beyond the common reduction of Chinese thought to moral teachings alone, Kim shows how competing schools debated the nature of the state, the relationship between people and rulers, and techniques of governance. Ali Rabiei’s coherent translation and Nimaj’s publication make this valuable source available to Iranian scholars in political science, philosophy, and China studies seeking to understand the geometry of power in East Asian history beyond Western conceptual codes.

• A comprehensive account of diverse schools beyond Confucian monism: Contrary to the common image that Chinese thought is limited to Confucian teachings, the book examines in detail the complex and interactive debates among rival schools.
• The dialectic of “morality and power” in imperial governance: The work shows that historical Chinese statecraft rested on an intelligent combination of “outer Confucianism”—the moral and ritual legitimation of power—and “inner Legalism”—the firm application of law, rewards, punishments, and bureaucratic structures.
• Political legitimacy and the people’s right of resistance: Kim revisits the Mandate of Heaven (Tianming) and thinkers such as Mencius, emphasizing the principle that political legitimacy was conditional upon providing livelihoods and public satisfaction, and that rebellion and political change could be justified in cases of oppression and structural failure.
• A key to understanding contemporary Chinese governance: Studying this work clarifies the philosophical and intellectual foundations of contemporary Chinese leaders and elites and explains how bureaucratic meritocracy, the importance of stability, and the priority of collective order in contemporary China can be understood as continuities of this long tradition.

14. China’s Global and Regional Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century

Authors: Bahareh Sazmand and Faryborz Arghavani Pirsalami
Publisher: University of Tehran Press

This is an academic, systematic, and analytical work that serves as a respected scholarly reference for understanding Beijing’s behavior in the international system. The authors examine the transformation of China’s foreign policy from the transition period and the cautious strategy of “hiding capabilities” toward a period of tangible activism, soft balancing, and geoeconomic initiatives. The book’s core value lies in combining theoretical concepts from international relations—especially structural realism, neoclassical realism, and constructivism—with field-based data and detailed event analysis.

The book’s structure intelligently separates levels of analysis. It first addresses the theoretical context, cognitive foundations, and broad national-security and economic objectives of China, and then tests the implementation of these policies at two levels: “global,” including relations with the established hegemon, international organizations, and global governance; and “regional,” including East Asia, the Middle East and West Asia, Central Asia, and Africa. Its publication by the University of Tehran Press provides Iranian researchers, regional-studies students, and foreign-policy and international-relations experts with a coherent and documented text free from journalistic generalizations.

• A dual and multilevel theoretical approach: The book does not merely describe events; using international-relations theories, it explains Beijing’s logic in combining balance-of-power politics, regional institution-building, and economic diplomacy to consolidate its position as an influential pole in a multipolar world.
• Comprehensive analysis of China’s regional spheres of influence: The authors examine Beijing’s behavioral patterns across diverse geopolitical regions, focusing on region-specific interests—from tension management and maritime security in East and Southeast Asia, to stable energy security and the management of transport routes in West Asia and the Persian Gulf, and mineral resources and geopolitical influence in Africa.
• The Belt and Road Initiative as a platform for twenty-first-century diplomacy: The book shows how infrastructure connectivity and the development of transit and digital corridors have moved beyond purely commercial goals to become strategic tools for linking the prosperity of neighboring countries with China’s growth and reducing the costs of direct confrontation with a U.S.-led order.
• Policy insight for West Asia and Iran: By examining China’s multidimensional balancing among different Middle Eastern actors, including the Persian Gulf states and Iran, the book helps domestic policymakers and analysts understand Beijing’s behavioral frameworks, red lines, and calculations in long-term economic and strategic cooperation.