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from engagement to competition, even confrontation. It would have been useful to have a discussion in Chapter 2, showing how these policy changes reflect a change in U.S. strategy toward China.We need of course to stipulate this dependent variable (strategy) before we can try to explain it. Naturally, it is also necessary to stipulate the independent variable(s). The reader often encounters seeming inconsistencies, even contradictions, on this score. For example, Zhao simultaneously states that “in the foreseeable future, nomatter whether the US economy continues to deteriorate or recover, it is certain that China’s voice in international economic affairs will continue to increase” (p. 65); “In the economic field, China’s developmentalmomentum is strong and it holds the upper hand [vis-à-vis the U.S.]” (p. 72); and “China’s rapid economic growth, which has been the impetus for regional power shift, is still uncertain” (p. 75). How should the reader reconcile these statements, and how are China’s economic growth and its economic challenges supposed to affect its foreign strategy? When China had a weak economy during the Maoist years, its foreign policy was allegedly bellicose. But now after its economy has grown enormously, Washington claims that its policy has again become bellicose.How can both aweak and strong economy produce the same policy? Of course, the policies pursued by a country are not the same as its strategy but are rather a reflection of this strategy intended to implement it. Thus, the United States may be said to have a strategy of preventing another country from becoming a regional hegemon after it has itself attained this status in the Western Hemisphere, inclining it to shift its support from Japan to China, and vice versa, to prevent the stronger one of them from claiming regional hegemony in East Asia. Alternatively, Washington’s policy of engaging China can be said to reflect a strategy seeking to change the character of China’s government and the values of its people. Other examples may be Deng’s injunction to his countrymen that China should bide its time and hide its brilliance, and Yoshida’s doctrine exchanging Japan’s political and military subordination to the United States for Washington’s support assisting Japan’s economic recovery and growth. As these illustrations imply, policies are supposed to be motivated and guided by a more basic calculation and conception, a country’s grand strategy. In conclusion, this book has a laudable goal to compare the foreign strategies of different countries. It would be a stronger contribution if it could be clearer in specifying its dependent and independent variables, demonstrating the relative impact of various independent variables, and showing the similarities and dissimilarities in the policy processes producing United States, Chinese, and Japanese strategies by applying the same concepts and analysis to them. The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development. By Shiping Tang. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022. 328p. $120.00 cloth, $35.00 paper. doi:10.1017/S1537592723000919