XIAOHONG LIU Xiaohong Liu brings twelve years of personal experience in the Chinese foreign service to this pathbreaking study. Drawing on her own direct observations, interviews, and newly available Chinese sources, she examines four generations of Chinese ambassadors, who served from 1949 to 1994. She charts the evolution of the Chinese diplomatic corps from its early military orientation to the emergence of career professionals and assesses the impact of various ambassadors on Chinese foreign policy. Chinese Ambassadors will appeal to readers interested in Chinese foreign affairs, international relations, and diplomacy.

Maybe you are familiar with the growth in recent decades of "majority world" missionaries being sent all over the world from non-Western countries (i.e., countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East). This book focuses on missionaries sent from one non-Western country, analyzing the experiences of Chinese missionaries on the mission field. The missionaries interviewed were sent from house churches in mainland China, have served overseas for at least two years, and are ministering cross-culturally to non-Chinese on the mission field. The first research question relates to Chinese missionaries' successes and difficulties in cross-culturally building relationships with locals, learning the local language, and adjusting to the local culture. The second research question analyzes factors that have contributed to the Chinese missionaries remaining on the mission field. This included how pre-field preparation and on-field support contributed to their retention. Also analyzed were other challenges and needs the missionaries had on the field. The interviewees were serving in countries in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.

The founder -- Shadow diplomacy -- War by other means -- Chasing respectability -- Between truth and lies -- Diplomacy in retreat -- Selective integration -- Rethinking capitalism -- The fightback -- Ambition realized -- Overreach.

What does it take for lasting change to take root in your life? If you've ever tried, failed, and wondered what you could do differently, you need to read How People Change. In the book, biblical counseling experts Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp explain the biblical pattern for change in a clear, practical way you can apply to the challenges of daily life. But change involves much more than just a biblical formula: you will see how God is at work to make you the person you were created to be. That powerful, loving, redemptive relationship is at the heart of all positive change you experience. A changed heart is the bright promise of the gospel, but many of us wonder if we'll ever see lasting change take root in our lives. When the Bible talks about the gift of a new heart, it doesn't mean a heart that is immediately perfected, but a heart that is capable of being changed. Jesus's work on the cross targets our hearts, our core desires and motivations, and when our hearts change, our behavior changes. How People Change targets the root of a person: the heart. When our core desires and motivations change, only then will behavior follow. Using a biblical model of Heat, Thorns, Cross, and Fruit, Paul David Tripp and Timothy S. Lane reveal how lasting change is possible. You don't need to be stuck anymore. In Christ, you are a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come. Includes a foreword by David Powlison.

Protecting China's Interests Overseas provides a fascinating and new window into Chinese foreign and security policymaking. In particular, it shows how the management of non-traditional security issues abroad led to the emergence of China's strategy to defend its interests overseas. This book comes at a critical time, as China has just inaugurated its first overseas military base in Djibouti, thereby establishing a long-term military presence outside Asia. Based on a large number of Chinese primary sources, the book examines how the main actors involved in the making and implementation of Chinese foreign policy understood the problem of protecting the assets and lives of Chinese companies and nationals abroad, especially in North Africa and the Middle East, and interacted with each other depending on their priorities, preferences, and organizational interests. As the different chapters explore various aspects and dynamics within the Chinese foreign and security policy machine, the analysis concludes that the emergence of China's strategy to defend its interests overseas was, to a large extent, crisis-driven. The evacuation of 36,000 Chinese nationals from Libya in 2011 was a critical moment in this process. Henceforth, significant efforts were made to strengthen the capabilities of and coordination between the different agencies under the control of the Chinese leadership, especially the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Consistently, China's military presence abroad expanded and evolved over the years to stabilize the regions where the country's human and economic presence is most significant, and to neutralize the non-traditional security threats against it. However, Chinese policymakers still face important challenges and complex dilemmas on the path to formulate a sustainable policy towards this very difficult issue. Protecting China's Interests Overseas also offers an opportunity to rethink how we study and understand Chinese foreign policymaking.

This book investigates the globalization process of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in West Africa, primarily in Benin and Ghana, based on ethnographical studies. It challenges the dominant vision of "a powerful China in Africa", and argues that the so-called "Chinese business advantages" – monolithic Chinese state and Chinese low cost advantages, are non-viable for sustaining Chinese business development in the continent. Considering the Chinese SOEs globalization process in a relational approach, this book examines how the triple embeddedness (Chinese, African and managerial) shapes the Chinese SOEs globalization process over time and space, in diverse dimensions and among different entities – the Chinese state, Chinese SOEs, Chinese expatriates, the African government, African business partners, African staff, and the African society. It illustrates that the Chinese central state has "retreated" deliberately from its SOE globalization in Africa. The Chinese SOEs and Chinese expats are the major actors in initiating and inventing globalization strategies, facing limited Chinese state support and the African neopatrimonial governance and social contexts. Besides, the personal trajectories (from expatriation to social promotion) of Chinese SOE expats interweave with the globalization-turn-localization of their SOEs in Africa. Rejecting the linear, static and binary vision of "powerful China in powerless Africa", the present study thus emphasizes power dynamics in Chinese SOEs’ globalization process are organic and pluralistic though in certain extent hierarchical –"second-class". Time and local relations are key elements constituting the real Chinese advantages for Chinese SOEs vis-a-vis their ultimate competitors – not Western companies, but other Chinese companies.