Diplomacy Of Contemporary China

From the John Holmes Library collection.

Since the end of the Cold War, the new Chinese leadership generation has had to promulgate new guiding principles for handling global diplomacy which acknowledges China's new position. Given the dramatic changes in the international system and its domestic economic success for the growing 'China's rise' idea on the global stage, China in the 21st century faces a mixture of old and new challenges, including terrorism, hegemonism, and authoritarianism. While Deng Xiaooping combined Taoism, an ancient Chinese philosophy, into 'Taoist diplomacy' in response to the hostile international position after the Tiananmen Incident, China's foreign policy keeps changing, and the multidimensional diplomacy adopted by China can be seen as a consistent theme in Chinese foreign policy in the 21st century. Multidimensional Diplomacy of Contemporary China attempts to examine the origins, guiding principles and sequential outcomes of China's multidimensional diplomacy in the 21st century, working under the flag of 'peaceful development,' 'harmonious international order,' and 'global responsibility.' The contributions are grouped into three sections. The first discusses the theoretical foundations of multidimensional diplomacy. The second section turns the analytical focus to China's immediate neighbors in East Asia, and at last the book will go beyond the immediate neighborhood of China to the global community. These essays explore China's dealings with the countries of Africa, the Gulf, and the South Pacific and provide other in-depth analyses on China's foreign policy towards Pakistan, Russia, and Japan. This book seeks to significantly shape the knowledge and thinking about China's global interactions in the 21st century.

With the second-largest economy and rapidly growing military strength, China is now an emerging regional and global super power, which makes it confronted with a sudden increase in opportunities, pressures and conflicts in terms of international issues. This book gives a comprehensive and systematic introduction to the development of China’s diplomatic strategies since 1980s, which have been changed approximately every ten years to cope with the complicated and changing international situations. In 1980s, China took "non-alignment" to create a solid external environment for the reform and opening-up which had just been initiated. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, upheaval in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War in 1990s, China adopted the principle of "keeping a low profile and making some contributions", to adhere to the road of socialism while avoid making enemies. Nowadays, due to the continuous enhancement of national power and international status, China replaces "making some contributions" with "making positive actions", to get more actively involved in international affairs. This book will be a valuable reference for studies in China’s diplomacy and international relations. Readers interested in contemporary China will also be attracted by it.

China's guiding principle for foreign relations and its focus on states and regions has shifted a lot from the first 30 years of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, to 1978 and beyond, after reform and opening-up. However, PRC's diplomatic practice has been continuous, whether it was participation in the Korean War, breaking up with the former Soviet Union after a honeymoon period, China's self defense war over Sino-Indian border, participation in the Vietnam War, breakthrough in the Sino-US relation, or PRC's self defense war over the Sino-Vietnamese border. These historical events brought the need for theoretical study in International Politics (IP). The development of China's IP research was slow and filled with complications, but it signified a breakthrough from scratch. This book has filled gap by depicting a complete scroll of China's IP research in over 60 years since 1949. This book has followed two principles: one is according to the classification of the IP discipline and the other is to recommend adaptations according to China's actual conditions.

该书分为两个部分,共12章,第一部分为中国国情,介绍中国政治、经济、社会、文化等诸方面情况。第二部分为中国外交。

With the enhancement of national strength, China’s diplomacy has leapt onto a new high ground, basically obtaining the status of a world power. Meanwhile, it has also received a large amount of right and wrong mixed criticism and suggestions from different sides, in the face of a sudden increase in opportunities, pressures, and conflicts. The "creative involvement" in this book is exactly proposed for the future of China’s diplomacy. In this book, the author first defines the concept "creative involvement". Different from diplomatic theories in the traditional senses, creative involvement is a kind of diplomatic thinking which encourages more active participation in international affairs and advocates creative solutions. Then the author makes case studies on some events and people which have been of typical significance in China’s diplomatic practices since the end of the Cold War, expounding their innovations and limitations. In the third part, the author turns to various supportive propositions, ideas, and theories concerning creative involvement and explains how they are applied to China’s future diplomatic practice. Lastly, the author tries to set a number of scenarios, discussing the possible entry points for creative involvement. Combining innovative theoretical idea with practical investigation, this book will not only contribute to contemporary China diplomatic studies but also appeal to scholars and students of international relations studies.