Itinerario 29:2 (2005): 124–26.
The subject of relations between China and Southeast Asia is not a new one, and has been studied from a wide variety of perspectives. What distinguishes the approach of Martin Stuart-Fox, a professor of history at Queensland University, is that ‘this is not a book only about China’s relations with Southeast Asia, but about the relationship from both sides. It could be just as well be titled Southeast Asia and. China’ (vii). The belief in the commutative nature of this relationship is at once the book’s strength and its weakness.