Brothers in Arms

When the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia in 1975, they inherited a war-ravaged and internationally isolated country. Pol Pot’s government espoused the rhetoric of self-reliance, but Democratic Kampuchea was utterly dependent on Chinese foreign aid and technical assistance to survive. Yet in a markedly asymmetrical relationship between a modernizing, nuclear power and a virtually premodern state, China was largely unable to use its power to influence Cambodian politics or policy. In Brothers in Arms, Andrew Mertha traces this surprising lack of influence to variations between the Chinese and Cambodian institutions that administered military aid, technology transfer, and international trade. Today, China’s extensive engagement with the developing world suggests an inexorably rising China in the process of securing a degree of economic and political dominance that was unthinkable even a decade ago. Yet, China’s experience with its first-ever client state suggests that the effectiveness of Chinese foreign aid, and influence that comes with it, is only as good as the institutions that manage the relationship. By focusing on the links between China and Democratic Kampuchea, Mertha peers into the "black box" of Chinese foreign aid to illustrate how domestic institutional fragmentation limits Beijing’s ability to influence the countries that accept its assistance.

Remarkable.... Mertha's contributions in Brothers in Arms are many, most notably the adopted explanatory framework that places domestic institutions and bureaucratic organizations in the context of strategic interaction. Scholars of organizations will find much in this work that is novel, compelling, and pathbreaking.... Mertha delivers a truly impressive work, one that advances our understandings of institutions in contexts of strategic interaction, foreign aid, and China's likely influence in the coming years., Robust and fascinating.... Mertha's study represents a rare triumph of comparative research design, made possible by the author's impressive mastery of both Chinese and Khmer, as well as his sensitive and nuanced readings of the functional power relations motivating both systems.... Situated at the intersection of domestic and foreign policy analysis, Brothers in Arms represents a remarkable marriage between two richly detailed and informative case studies, and theoretical insights that make the book indispensable reading., [Brothers in Arms]not only provides historical insight into the bureaucratic structure of China's aid to its client state, i.e. Democratic Kampuchea (DK) between 1975 and 1979, but also explicates the casual effect of the fragmented Chinese and DK bureaucratic institutions, the variation of which determines the degree of China's ability to assert influence over DK.... This book is the first to provide such insightful detail on China's aid to the DK between 1979 and 1978... [and] is certainly a major breakthrough in the history of China's aid to the DK.... This book is a useful resource for students of China's foreign aid policy., Andrew Mertha's superb book is 35 years overdue. While it has long been appreciated that it was support from China that enabled the Communist Party of Kampuchea, aka the Khmer Rouge, to seize power in 1975 and to brutalize Cambodia until it was ousted by Vietnam in 1979, this is the first detailed study of how Beijing disbursed its aid and of the clash of bureaucratic cultures which ensued.... Brothers in Arms is a masterful account of China’s failed policy of support for Democratic Kampuchea, required reading for anyone who wishes to understand either Beijing’s role in Southeast Asia during the 1970s or the decisive influence of bureaucratic politics., Andrew Mertha has shed some very much needed light on the relationship between the People's Republic of Chine (PRC) and Democratic Kampuchea (DK) between 1975 and 1979 in Brothers in Arms. Remarkably, that light might extend to our understanding of current-day behaviour with client states as China scrambles for resources in Africa, Latin America, and beyond.

Andrew Mertha is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Program and SAIS China at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C.