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The Development of Chinese International Relations Theory and Implications for China’S Foreign Policy

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The Development of Chinese International Relations Theory and Implications for China’S Foreign Policy World Order with Chinese Characteristics: The Development of Chinese International Relations Theory and Implications for China’s Foreign Policy By Stephen N. Smith A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Political Science Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2020, Stephen N. Smith vi Abstract This dissertation critically examines the development of Chinese International Relations theories in the wake of China’s rise, the perception of international order held by China’s Communist Party and government elites and scholars, and the mutual implication and constitution of domestic ideas and foreign policy. The question at the heart of this project is: How do Chinese international relations scholars understand international order and how is this related to China’s approach to international order? In answering this question, this dissertation will argue that social conditions shape the development of international relations scholarship according to locally meaningful ideologies. In making this claim, I argue against the field of international relations as a universal discipline engaged in the objective analysis of an autonomous realm of global politics. Instead, I argue that as a socially conditioned body of knowledge, international relations theory is fundamentally a discourse about who and what the nation is and what its role in global politics should be. For the case used in this dissertation - China and the development of Chinese theories of IR - this has involved a reconstitution of China’s role in international and regional order in an attempt to breakaway from Western discourses and ascribe a new locally meaningful identity to the nation and its relation to others. Furthermore, these counter- hegemonic discourses are increasingly being adopted by the state as it seeks to define its role as a great power and to legitimate its hegemonic position in Asia. This study will contribute to debates on rising powers and international order, the role of ideas in foreign policy, and the sociology of the discipline of international relations. ii Acknowledgments When writing a dissertation, one often feels like Sisyphus, punished by the gods to roll a boulder up a mountain only to watch it roll back down when it nears the top, repeated for all eternity. In the Sisyphean task that was this dissertation, I have accumulated a significant debt that can only be briefly and insufficiently acknowledged here. First and foremost is my advisor Jeremy Paltiel. Jeremy is a teacher in every sense of the word. He has read almost everything I have produced in graduate school and has offered generous critiques that have improved my writing immeasurably. More importantly, he has been unfailing in his support and guidance as I stumbled through my own intellectual journey, all the while maintaining his characteristic mix of curiosity and kindness. I also owe a special thanks to my committee members Brian Schmidt and Farhang Rajaee who have been consistently supportive of this project, even as I stubbornly insisted on my own decisions. Along the way I have been lucky enough to meet and learn from exceptional scholars who have shaped my own thinking in various ways. In no particular order, I’d like to thank Shaun Breslin, Rosemary Foot, Randall Germain, Melissa Haussman, David Long, John Ravenhill, Fiona Robinson, Ren Xiao, and Yuan Yi. The Department of Political Science at Carleton was a warm and welcoming place to be. I’d like to thank the administrative staff, especially Brookes Fee, who have been essential in guiding me through the confounding bureaucratic machinations of the university. All throughout this process I have been blessed to be surrounded by friends – in Canada, China and places in between – that have provided much needed camaraderie and emotional support. You are too numerous to name here, but I am grateful to each and every one of you. This research would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I’d also like to iii thank the Canada-China Scholars’ Exchange program for sponsoring my initial trip to Shanghai in 2017. Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my family, who have been a consistent source of love and support even as I have been far away from home. These years have been measured by move ins and move outs, arrivals and departures, and too many missed birthdays. To my father, mother and sister: thank you. iv Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………………….…iii Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………………………v List of Figures and Tables…………………………………………………………………………………….vi List of Appendices………………………………………………………………………………………………vii Chapter 1: Introduction...........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: The Rise of China and International Order…...……………………………………..22 Chapter 3: Building a Chinese School of International Relations Theory……………….61 Chapter 4: Major Country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics…………………….105 Chapter 5: The China Solution to International Order………………………………………...152 Chapter 6: Harmonizing the Periphery……………………………………………………………...189 Chapter 7: Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………221 Appendix A………………………………………………………………………………………………………232 Appendix B………………………………………………………………………………………………………238 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………….242 v List of Figures and Tables Figure 1: Explanatory model…………………………………………………………………………….…24 Figure 2: Articles on International/World Order………………………………………………….32 Figure 3: Share of US GDP at peak……………………………………………………………………….41 Figure 4: China’s most influential foreign policy think tanks, 2018……………………..118 Figure 5: Selected study sessions of the 18th Central Committee Politburo…...……..124 Figure 6: Articles with ‘major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics’ as subject…………………………...…………………………………………………………………..134 Figure 7: China’s diplomacy: an evolutionary-historical comparison…………….…….138 Figure 8: Serve the revolutionary people of the world……………………………………..…151 Figure 9: China’s two traditions……………………….………………………………………………..193 Figure 10: Articles on peripheral diplomacy………….…………………………………………..206 Figure 11: China’s strategic and comprehensive strategic partnerships………..…….211 vi List of Appendices Appendix A: 40 most-cited academic articles on ‘Great Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics’ between 2012-2018……………………………………………………232 Appendix B: List of speeches and commentaries used in Chapter 5…………………….238 vii 1 Introduction ‘[C]entral to the lives of all empires have been the ways in which they have been constituted through language and their own self-representations: the discourses that have arisen to describe, defend, and criticize them, and the historical narratives that have been invoked to make sense of them.’1 - Jennifer Pitts Every great power needs a theoretical lens to justify its version of order. One of the more fascinating aspects of China’s dramatic accumulation of power at the turn of the 21st century has been the development of Chinese theories of international relations (IR). Drawing upon traditions more familiar to students of Chinese history, from imperial philosophies of Confucianism and Daoism to ideologies of ruling ‘all-under- heaven’, rather than the history of Westphalian Europe, the effort to develop unique Chinese IR theories epitomizes the epochal transformation in world order as material power moves away from the global North-West to China. Historically, power shifts have been accompanied by a restructuring of the principles that make up international life as new powers seek to legitimize their rule.2 As an effort to ‘rethink the world,’3 the creation of indigenous Chinese theories of IR reflects the intimate relationship between political power, knowledge, and representation in global politics. What originally began as my own personal interest in an esoteric development of non-Western IR theory has taken on larger importance in light of the recent metamorphosis in China’s diplomacy. As Mark Beeson writes, ‘China has begun to 1 Jennifer Pitts, “Political Theory of Empire and Imperialism,” Annual Review of Political Science 13, no. 1 (May 2010): 226. 2 Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 3 Tingyang Zhao, 天下体系: 世界制度哲学导论 ('The Tianxia System: A Philosophy for the World Institution’) (Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe, 2005), 16. 1 enunciate an alternative vision of development and international order,’ 4 in an attempt to solidify its own hegemonic position at the centre of a new regional system in Asia, at the expense of the United States. Some may dismiss China’s rhetoric of seeking to build a ‘community of shared future for mankind’ 5 , or its vision of a regional order in Asia underpinned by Chinese values of ‘amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness’ as marginal to the deeper reality of power politics or mere ideological covering for the relentless pursuit of national interests. But as the most formidable competitor to the United States since it assumed a position of global hegemony at the turn of the 20th century, China increasingly legitimates its behaviour, and that of others, in light of its own historical memories and governance traditions. China’s authoritarian party-state state has not
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