What interesting times we live in. Indeed, they are likely to become more interesting. One of the major issues for the new century is China’s emergence as a great power. How will China deal with the rest of the world? Should China be contained, confronted? How will its enhanced power be shown? How will governments wrestle with that power?

Martin Stuart-Fox outlines this problem from the multiple viewpoints of China and of South-East Asia, and adopts a long historical perspective. His tightly organised book covers around 2000 years of relationships between China and the many kingdoms and countries of South-East Asia. He argues, as a good historian should, that the past will powerfully shape the future: ‘a new pattern of power relations is emerging, one that harks back in significant ways to earlier times.’