China S Peaceful Rise

While in the past other emerging powers have used territorial expansion or other forms of aggression in order to insert themselves into the international arena, China is taking a different road. In this timely collection of speeches, Zheng Bijian, one of China's leading thinkers on ideological questions, examines "China's peaceful rise," addressing some of the most complex issues China faces as it emerges into a rapidly changing world order. These speeches reflect Zheng's firm sense that the lessons of history demand that China pursue a stable, peaceful international environment as a first priority. Such a strategy will not only help smooth China's rise—it will also translate China's successes into benefits for other countries as well. These speeches are worth reading not only for the strength of their ideas, but also for a greater understanding of the political and policy constraints and opportunities in relations with China. They help us begin to answer the crucial question that informs all these speeches: How should we think about China?

China's rapid development has attracted worldwide attention in recent years. The implications of China's rise, from its expanding influence and military muscle to its growing demand for energy supplies, are heatedly debated in the international community. Jintao's officially proposed concept of 'peaceful development' has become the underlying principle behind Chinese foreign policy under the fourth generation leadership. However, is 'peaceful development' possible in the broad context of domestic and international development? This comprehensive and timely study examines the conditions and challenges of China's 'peaceful rise' and addresses the central question of whether it is possible for China to 'rise peacefully' in the 21st century, bearing in mind the implications for China and the rest of the world. It is ideal as a supplementary course book in foreign policy, Asian politics and development.

Despite China's desire to make its rapid ascendance in the 21st century as non provocative as possible, the key to ensure China's peaceful rise lies in two-way integration and engagement. A closely integrated China with the rest of the world and China's acceptance of existing international norms and rules may compel China to behave in a more predictable and responsive way. This co-edited book examines China's rising military capacity and the complex feelings its neighbors, such as Taiwan, South Korea and India, have toward the increasingly powerful China. The focus of this book is on the efforts made by China to brand her non-aggressive image through promoting public diplomacy and expanding regional free trade and cooperation in Asia and Latin America. It uses the cross-Taiwan-strait relations as a testing ground for the prospect of peace between the two former adversaries. China's Quiet Rise will help readers understand why integration, instead of isolation and containment, may be the most effective way to facilitate China's peaceful rise.

China's potential threat to the existing global order is not derived from her rapid economic growth and military expansion, but from China's potential domestic chaos. The workable solution of China's democratization under the current Chinese political system is not to dissolve the Communist Party of China, but to begin with freedom of media, religion, and citizen participation.

Contributors to this insightful volume on topics in Chinese history from the past 1,400 years highlight the complexity at hand inside and outside modern China, while exploring issues related to political and social dynamics, economic structures, modernization, identity building, and Chinese interaction with the outside world. The articles presented here provide new insight on events as broad-ranging as the interreligious court debates of the Tang, the Jiaqing reform of the Qing, the Chinese display at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, China’s rise, and its current Internet regulation, making this highly interdisciplinary collection an important contribution to current scholarship on the nation of China.

Zheng Bijian has been one of the most influential thinkers and policy formulators in China during its reform period. In the early 1990s he worked with Deng Xiaoping collating and publishing Deng’s speeches and as vice president of the Party School gave top priority to ensuring that members of the Party were thoroughly familiar with Deng’s views, theories and reform agenda. In this important book, which is already available in Chinese, Zheng Bijian sets out his views and relates how his views were formed and developed over the long reform period, including the full text of his important speeches and papers, together with appropriate introductory material. Particular key themes which Zheng Bijian’s thought has contributed to China’s development are that China should embrace globalization and strengthen its relationship with the rest of the world, and that China’s development should be peaceful. "Zheng Bijian’s ideas, actions and vision helped China in its astonishing thirty years growth. Zheng Bijian made a great contribution to envisioning the new role of China in a globalized world. This book is the intellectual story of a great witness of our times." - Romano Prodi, former President of the European Commission and former Prime Minister of Italy

Can China peacefully attain great power status in the twenty-first century? Adopting a constructivist approach, the book argues that China's prospects for achieving great power status peacefully depend more on Chinese and international perceptions of China's rise/development than on concrete measures of power or economic benefits, because power considerations and economic self-interest reflect shifting perceptions that have their roots in factors, such as historical experience and national image. Incorporating historical perceptions, survey data and general analysis, the book explores Chinese foreign policies in international organizations, international trade, security relations and as a model for global governance, plus the reactions to those policies within the context of China's relations with Asian neighbours (India, Japan and the states of South-east Asia), existing international powers (the European Union, Russia and the United States), and emergent trading partners (Africa), representing a wider number of diverse states than are included in most books.--Publisher's website.

A critical analysis of David C. Kang’s China Rising, which is a fine example of an author making use of creative thinking skills to reach a conclusion that flies in the face of traditional thinking. The conventional view that the book opposed, known in international relations as ‘realism,’ was that the rise of any new global power results in global or regional instability. As such, China’s development as a world economic powerhouse worried mainstream western geopolitical scholars, whose concerns were based on the realist assumption that individual countries will inevitably compete for dominance. Evaluating these arguments, and finding both their relevance and adequacy wanting, Kang instead turned traditional thinking on its head by looking at Asian history without preconceptions, and with analytical open-mindedness. Producing several novel explanations for existing evidence, Kang concludes that China’s neighbors do not want to compete with it in the way that realist interpretations predict. Rather than creating instability by jockeying for position, he argues, surrounding countries are happy for China to be acknowledged as a leader, believing that its dominant position will stabilize Asia, and give the whole region more of a hand in international relations. Though critics have taken issue with Kang’s conclusions, his paradigm-shifting approach is nevertheless an excellent example of developing fresh new conclusions through creative thinking.