This book considers Chinese foreign policy and China's future role in world affairs in the context of the country's recent past. Robert Sutter shows that although it appears to be in U.S. interests for post-Mao leaders to continue moving toward international norms, a post-Deng leadership backed by growing economic and military power and reflecting profound changes in China's economy and society could move in markedly different directions. Most foreign powers appear willing to accommodate China, avoiding actions that could prompt a sharp shift in Chinese foreign policy, but Sutter argues that current U.S. policy intrudes on so many issues that are particularly sensitive for Beijing and for China's future that it represents perhaps the most critical variable determining how China will position itself in world affairs. Concluding that there is no guarantee the United States will use this influence wisely, Sutter examines the uncertainty and unpredictability of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War environment that work against the creation of an effective U.S. policy toward China.

This cogent but comprehensive book examines the international relations of the People’s Republic of China since its founding in 1949. Noted scholar Robert G. Sutter provides a balanced assessment of the country’s recent successes and advances as well as the important legacies and constraints that hamper it, especially in nearby Asia—long the focus of China’s foreign policy attention. Sutter demonstrates how Beijing has carefully created an image of a China that follows consistent policies based on morally correct principles, but its record shows repeated episodes of sometime surprising change and frequent use of violence, intimidation, and coercion. China’s leaders, he argues, still fail to manage the desire for productive foreign relations with their aspirations to build Chinese security and sovereignty interests. Image-building efforts condition Chinese public and elite opinion to be extraordinarily sensitive, self-righteous, and often alarmist in dealing with the many disputes China has with its Asian neighbors and the United States. Advances the PRC has made in other parts of the world focus mainly on commercial interests, limiting its actual impact on world affairs. Sutter shows readers how to use China’s rise in nearby Asia as a reliable barometer of how important and effective it actually will become internationally.

This book explains why China has resorted to the use of large-scale military force in foreign affairs. How will China use its growing military might in coming crisis and existing conflicts? This book contributes to the current debate on the future of the Asia-Pacific region by examining why China has resorted to using military force in the past. Utilizing fresh theoretical insights on the causes of interstate war and employing a sophisticated methodological framework, the book provides detailed analyses of China’s intervention in the Korean War, the Sino-Indian War, China’s border clashes with the Soviet Union and the Sino-Vietnamese War. It argues that China did not employ military force in these wars for the sake of national security or because of material issues under contestation, as frequently claimed. Rather, the book’s findings strongly suggest that considerations about China’s international status and relative standing are the principal reasons for China’s decision to engage in military force in these instances. When reflecting the study’s central insight back onto China’s contemporary territorial conflicts and problematic bilateral relationships, it is argued that the People’s Republic is still a status-seeking and thus highly status-sensitive actor. As a result, China’s status ambitions should be very carefully observed and well taken into account when interacting with the PRC. This book will be of much interest to students of Chinese foreign policy, Asian politics, military and strategic studies and IR in general.

Today, by many accounts, China is the world's foremost purveyor of foreign aid and foreign investment to developing countries. This is the product of China's miracle economic growth over a period of more than three decades, together with China's drive to become a major player in world affairs and accomplish this through economic rather than military means. This three-volume work is the first comprehensive study of China's aid and investment strategy to trace how it has evolved since Beijing launched its foreign aid diplomacy at the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Volume I examines the definitions, origins, nature, and scope of foreign aid and investment by other countries. Using that background, John F. Copper then traces China's financial assistance to developing countries from the Mao period - when China gave meaningful foreign aid despite its own economic struggles - through the beginning of China's post-1978 economic boom and during subsequent decades of rapid economic growth. Copper shows that China has a more salient history in giving foreign assistance than any other country in the world; while China's objectives in giving foreign assistance have changed markedly over time, China has always been driven by efforts to realize its foreign policy objectives and expand China's external influence.

Wolf Warrior Diplomacy and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: From Policy to Podium traces the evolution of Chinese foreign policy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, examining the domestic and international role that aggression plays in the diplomacy of the Chinese Communist Party. Yaoyao Dai and Lu Wei Rose Luqiu demonstrate that China’s diplomacy has constantly evolved with the changing domestic environment and global power balance and that, at the behest of Xi Jinping, “Wolf Warrior” diplomats in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have embraced a more confident and proactive role in foreign policy. Combining advanced computational methods with analysis of press conferences, public speeches, and government statements, this book offers a comprehensive evaluation of continuity and change in the diplomatic language of the Chinese Communist Party and media reactions to Chinese diplomacy in the Global South. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of communication, rhetoric, political science, and international relations.

This book stands as a rebuke to any who would attempt to forward simplistic interpretations of China's rise. In place of parsimonious arguments, or an endorsement of any singular set of images (whether pacific or confrontational), it repeatedly calls attention to the remarkable complexity of China's emerging international profile. More specifically, the leading Chinese and American scholars working in the fields of Chinese foreign policy, international political economy, and national security, who contributed to this volume argue that while China appears to be entering a new era in its relationship with the outside world, such a development encompasses disparate, even contradictory, policies, and, as a result, there is a great deal of fluidity within China's place in world politics.

The Asia Pacific region has become an increasingly important focus of attention in International Relations in the post-Cold War period and the evolution of Chinese foreign policy holds the key to future developments in this arena. The collapse of the USSR also highlights China's importance as a potential global super power. This timely text provides a broad-ranging assessment of China's foreign relations at global and regional level and in relation to its disputed territories under foreign control.

This book is a study of the making of foreign policy of China, a rising power in the 21st century. It examines three sets of driving forces behind China’s foreign policy making. One is historical sources, including the selective memories and reconstruction of the glorious empire with an ethnocentric world outlook and the century of humiliation at the hands of foreign imperialist powers. The second set is domestic institutions and players, particularly the proliferation of new party and government institutions and players, such as the national security commission, foreign policy think tanks, media and local governments. The third set is Chinese perception of power relations, particularly their position in the international system and their position relations with major powers. This book consists of articles from the Journal of Contemporary China.

This collection examines changes in China’s international role over the past century. Tracing the links between domestic and external expectations in the PRC’s role conception and preferred engagement patterns in world politics, the work provides a systematic account of changes in China’s role and the mechanisms of role taking. Individual chapters address the impact of China’s history and identity on its bilateral role taking patterns with the United States, Japan, Africa, the Europe Union, and Socialist States as well as China’s role in international institutions, the G-20, and East Asia’s Financial Order. Each of the empirical chapters is written to a common template exploring the role of historical self-identification, altercasting and domestic role contestation in shaping the PRC’s role. The volume provides an analytically coherent framework evaluating whether cooperation or conflict in China’s international engagement is likely to increase, and if so, the extent to which this will follow from incompatible domestic demands and external expectations. By combining a theoretical framework with strong comparative case studies, this volume contributes to the ongoing debate on China’s rise and integration into the international society and provides sound conclusions about the prospects for a transition of China’s purpose in world politics.