Book Description

Chinese Foreign Policy offers an unprecedented and comprehensive survey of China's foreign relations since 1949. The contributors include leading historians, economists, and political scientists in the field of Chinese studies, as well as noteworthy international relations specialists. The principal purposes of the volume are to assess the variety of sources that give shape to Chinese foreign policy, and to explain and analyse four decades of Chinese interaction with the world, using theories of international relations as an analytical framework. The first section considers the historical, perceptual, economic, and political domestic sources of Chinese foreign policy, and argues that China's rulers have long believed in their nation's centrality in world affairs, and that China has felt an overwhelming need since the start of the Cold War to ensure its own security and regain freedom of initiative in its foreign relations. The chapters analyze not only nation-state contacts but a broad range of economic and social interactions, giving an enriched sense of the totality of China's foreign relations. The role of ideology in motivating elites and forming foreign policy is also explored both at formal and informal levels. One major variable in China's foreign relations is economic development strategy, and this is considered in depth. The second part reviews the international systemic sources of China's foreign relations, such as strategic systems, and scientific and technological imperatives. China is seen as searching for a redefined role in a multipolar rather than a bipolar world order. The complex and cyclical Sino-US and Sino-Soviet relationships are analyzed, bringing to light the underlying patterns and systemic forces, as well as interpersonal relationships, shaping China's foreign policy. Other chapters deal with China's relationships with Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and with China's international behaviour in the sphere of economics, trade, and aid. The last part of this book relates the study of Chinese foreign policy directly to International Relations theory, concluding that the foreign policy can only be understood when the theories of international relations are supplemented by a specific knowledge of China's strategic and domestic milieu. Studies of these subjects are retrospective in that all contributors explore broad patterns of Chinese external behaviour based on careful and systematic analysis of the historical record and a full range of primary documentary sources, but they are also forward looking in that they consider various scenarios for the future evolution of China's relations with the world community. This book contributes through an interdisciplinary approach to our understanding of China's role in the evolving world order, and will be invaluable to academics, students, commentators and policy makers alike. It is the most comprehensive study of modern China's foreign relations published to date.