Diverse Multilateralism: Four Strategies in China’s Multilateral Diplomacy

This article addresses Chinas multilateral diplomacy by identifying four distinct strategies: watching, engaging, circumventing, and shaping. The typology builds on two literatures: power transition theory, and the more recent ??assertiveness?? discourse in the West. Drawing from a range of cases in both the economic and security domains, the article argues that China??s multilateralism is diverse, and that it cannot be un-problematically characterized as either status-quo or revisionist in nature. However, the general trend appears to be towards engagement, but with an assertive tact as China??s interests become further entangled in the business of international institutions.     

Shaping China’s Climate Diplomacy: Wealth,Status, and Asymmetric Interdependence

China’s diplomacy in the post-Kyoto Protocol international climate change negotiations (ICCN) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) bears proactive and reactive feature. On the one hand, China has proactively built several new coalitions including its bilateral climate coalition with India, the BASIC group and the Like-minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) while maintaining its traditional coalition with the Group-77 and China to facilitate its bargaining power against developed countries and their negotiating blocs. On the other hand, however, China has reactively made significant compromises to its negotiation partners on mitigation obligations of greenhouse gas emissions. Such a proactive and reactive feature of China’s climate diplomacy has been mainly shaped by: first, China’s desire to maximize its wealth/profits from its participation in the Clean Development Mechanism; secondly, its desire to build a responsible great power status in the international system; and thirdly, its asymmetric dependence on the developed countries especially the US and the EU for transferring climate mitigation-related technologies.     

A Discourse Called China and the PRC’s Foreign Policy and Diplomacy

On the basis of the premise that China, besides being a powerful civilization and state, is also a powerful discourse, this essay will set forth, as a preliminary analytical step, a plausible definition of the ‘Chinese mind’ by describing certain essential characteristics that have been forged in China’s classical culture and thought. When placed in the more creative sphere of discourse construction, these essential characteristics become ideological compounds of the here theorized ‘discourse called China’, whose impact is weighed up as the focal analytical point in the discursive space of the PRC’s foreign policy and diplomacy.     

Building ‘Community’: New Strategies of Governance in Urban China

Abstract

Under the planned economy China's urban population was largely immobile and governed through the socialist workunit (danwei). Market reforms begun in the 1980s have culminated in the last decade with a dramatic decline of the state-sector and the emergence of a more mobile, heterogeneous and economically independent urban population. In rendering the old system obsolete, these trends have led the Chinese government to rethink its strategies for urban governance. At the turn of the millennium, a new campaign to ‘build communities’ was launched throughout the nation with the objective of establishing the residential ‘community’ as the new basic unit of urban governance. This paper explores the logic behind this policy innovation and analyzes the techniques adopted to operationalize ‘community governance’.     

Jean A. Berlie,ed. China’s Globalization and the Belt and Road Initiative

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Olayiwola Abegunrin and Charity Manyeruke,China’s Power in Africa: A New Global Order

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Joshua Eisenman,ed., Red China’s Green Revolution: Technological Innovation,Institutional Change,and Economic Development Under the Commune

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

China’s Global Energy Diplomacy: Behavior Normalization Through Economic Interdependence or Resource Neo-mercantilism and Power Politics?

The magnitude of China’s energy needs and global energy acquisitions, and their recent emergence as key features of the international system, raise many sensitive questions: will China adapt to or reshape the international system as historically defined by the hegemonic West, and what is the role of its energy policy, politics, and resource nationalism in a possible new Great Game? While much of the current literature posits an either/or approach (China adapts to energy market or tries to redefine them as a part of a wider political plan), our hypothesis is that China is essentially a pragmatic actor who reacts to the forces in presence, rather than a revisionist power with a grand plan to realign the world order to suit its needs and satisfy some kind of pre-established grand vision. We posit that China goes beyond conformity with or resistance to the established energy market and the power relations they underpin: While local circumstances may be considered variables, its fixed objective is a stable international order and the pragmatic satisfaction of its energy needs in order to insure continued economic growth and general stability at home.     

Harmonious World and China’s Foreign Economic Policy: Features,Implications, and Challenges

Analysts oddly have neglected the foreign economic implications of China’s harmonious world and harmonious society doctrines. This article specifies the foreign economic policy effects of both, collectively termed harmonious world plus (HWP). It shows that HWP implies China’s continued integration into the global economic system, acceptance of the extant international economic order, and backing for increased cooperation and exchange, provided it is mutually beneficial. It further demonstrates that HWP implies support for global development, self-reliance, and multilateralism. Beyond this, the study reveals that HWP is likely to influence China’s interactions with international economic institutions, foreign investors, and its international resource dealings. Generally speaking, this article shows that China is making progress adhering to most of the tenets of HWP, though there are some areas for concern. It also reveals that convergences and divergences between HWP and China’s actual policies are attributable to national interests, China’s limited capabilities, and domestic politics. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard is associate director of the Center for U.S.-China Policy Studies and associate professor in the Department of International Relations at San Francisco State University (SFSU). He also is a Board Member of and Research Director for the Association of Chinese Political Studies. Dr. Blanchard’s research interests include China’s integration into the global economic system, China’s interactions with multinational corporations, Chinese multinational corporations, Sino-Japanese relations, and Chinese territorial and maritime issues. He is a co-editor of Harmonious World and China’s New Foreign Policy (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008), a co-editor of and contributor to Power and the Purse: Economic Statecraft, Interdependence, and National Security (London: Frank Cass, 2000), and the author of 20 book chapters and refereed journal articles.