Drawing upon insights from international socialization theory and social psychology, this book examines China’s efforts to multipolarize – and hence potentially de-liberalize – the international system from the local perspective of a non-democratic (yet democratizing) nation and then applies these insights to Beijing’s current global agency in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Specifically, the book scrutinizes Beijing’s normative engagement in Kazakhstan, a nation that evolved from an enthusiastic supporter of the West’s normative domination of...