“A group of distinguished scholars has laid the groundwork for us to reconceptualize international relations in Asia. This has injected an exciting force into the long‑overdue quest for self‑understanding within the field of international relations.”
— Peter Vale, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Academic Development at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and Honorary Professor of Political Science at Rhodes University, where he also serves as an Honorary Professor with the Nelson Mandela School of Political Leadership. He is additionally an Honorary Professor with the African Earth Observation Network at Nelson Mandela University, having been one of its founding members, and has also held professorial appointments at the University of the Free State in South Africa and at the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil.

“This book powerfully guides readers to abandon established frameworks of thought, offering a completely new perspective on how questions and answers in international relations come into being.”
— Shi Zhiyu, Full‑time Professor in the Department of Diplomacy and Director of the Center for Global South Studies at the School of Politics and International Relations of Tongji University; a Changjiang Scholar appointed by the Chinese Ministry of Education; and Professor in the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University.

★Drawing on the collective insights of scholars from leading universities and research institutions, including Leiden University in the Netherlands and National Chung Hsing University, and integrating diverse perspectives from numerous countries in the Global South, this is a rare and influential volume in the field of international relations that illuminates the convergence of Western and Asian worldviews.
★This book challenges the “Western-centric” foundations of international relations theory. By examining the historical experiences of nine Asian countries, it provides a robust empirical basis for establishing an “Asian perspective” within global IR scholarship. It serves as an invaluable resource for scholars and policymakers committed to understanding global diversity and exploring the future of non-Western approaches to international relations.

This groundbreaking collection challenges the Western-centric foundations of international relations theory, placing an Asian perspective at the forefront of the field. Covering nine Asian countries, it employs rigorous analysis to reveal how the concepts of sovereignty and internationalism have been uniquely interpreted and applied across diverse Asian contexts.
Going beyond the American social science paradigm, this volume traces the fascinating interplay between Western and Asian worldviews, examines the evolution of each country’s approach to international relations, and demonstrates the transformative impact of these developments on global academic discourse. It is essential reading for scholars committed to understanding the truly global diversity of international relations and to envisioning a promising post-Western future for international theory.

Yih-Jye Hwang
Assistant Professor of International Relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands. His research focuses on East Asian culture and identity politics, East Asia’s conception of human security, China’s strategic thought and just war theory, post-Western international relations, post-structuralism, and theories of nationalism. He has published extensively on politics and international relations in the Asia-Pacific region, with articles appearing in journals such as the Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Administration, International Politics, and the Review of Political Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in International Politics from Aberystwyth University in Wales in 2008.

Karen Smith
Lecturer in International Relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands and a South African scholar of international relations, her research challenges Western-centric narratives and reinterprets international relations from the perspective of the Global South, particularly Africa. Before joining Leiden University in 2017, she worked at the University of Cape Town, where she remains an honorary research fellow. From 2019 to 2021, she also served as Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect.

Vinith Thakur
Lecturer in International Relations at the Institute of History at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He received his Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in May 2014. After a brief teaching stint at Ambedkar University in India, he pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Two and a half years later, he secured a short-term faculty position at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, after which he crossed the Atlantic to the United Kingdom. Since September 2017, he has had the privilege of teaching at Leiden University. His research has also led to short-term fellowships at the University of Cambridge, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and Rhodes University. He is the author of works including A Life of Liberalism (Routledge, 2023), South Africa, Race, and the Making of International Relations (Roman & Littlefield, 2020—co-authored with Peter Vale; recipient of the Francesco Guicciardini Prize for the best book on the history of international relations), Imperial Discipline: Race and the Emergence of International Relations (Pluto Press, 2020, co-authored), and Afterword to Independence: Discourses on Foreign Policy in India and South Africa (Oxford University Press, 2018), among others.

Cai Dongjie
Distinguished Professor at the Institute of International Politics of National Chung Hsing University and Adjunct Professor at the Taiwan Research Center of Fudan University. His work What Is Politics? was selected for the “China Good Books” list, and he is also the author of Democracy: Yes and No, China’s Diplomatic Strategy: Tradition and Its Transformations, The Rise and Fall Through the Ages, and Glimpses of the Far West. In addition, he has translated more than ten works, including America’s Imperial Temptation, The China Factor, De Gaulle’s War Memoirs, and Wilson, and has published over one hundred academic papers. Over the past five years, he has participated in or chaired nearly 150 academic conferences.

1. Introduction

Part I: Encounters and the Circulation of Knowledge
2. U.S. Philanthropic Foundations and the Promotion of International Studies in the Asia-Pacific Region
3. “Knowledge Networks” in the Study of East Asian Diplomatic History
4. When the West Met the East: The Evolution of European Perceptions of Asia from the 16th to the 18th Century

Part II: Disciplinary Histories of East and Southeast Asia
5. Tracing the Evolution of Japan’s International Relations—Mari Nakamura
6. The Birth of Mongolian International Relations: Origins and Development
7. The Emergence of International Studies in Vietnam
8. Colonial Imaginaries, the Disciplining of the Afterlife, and Decolonial Reflections: The Philippine Experience in International Thought and Practice

Part III: Disciplinary Histories of South and West Asia
9. A Genealogy of Indian International Relations
10. The Impact of the Cold War on the Emergence of Pakistan’s International Relations
11. From Consent to Hegemonic Struggle: A Gramscian Analysis of Foreign Policy Discourse in Turkey’s *Mülkiyeliler Dergisi* (1965–1989)

Part IV: Decolonization and Disciplinary Reflection
12. Imitation and Racialized Orders of Knowledge: A Genealogy of Korean International Relations
13. Critical Area Studies and Global Politics: The Illusory Promise of Global International Relations
14. Toward a More Decolonized Study of International Relations: Personal Reflections from Postcolonial Korea

15. Conclusion