This book examines Republican China’s diplomatic strategies and engagement, and power reconfiguration in East Asia after 1914. Drawing on a vast trove of primary sources, including newly declassified archival materials, the book offers not only a richly-informed account of how the Beiyang government conducted diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference but also new insights into why. Calling into question such long-held beliefs that the Beiyang government was inadequately prepared for the Conference, was treasonous in urging the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, and that its...