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Why does China behave as it does in its foreign policy? How and
why does China behave differently from other Great Powers in
international society? How does China's understanding of the
responsibility associated with its rising power explain its
international behaviour? In what sense can we argue that China
has become more (or less) responsible in international relations?
In China's search for its Great Power status, how do domestic
politics and historical experience matter in its understanding of
the responsibility of power? Does China think it is well served by
a responsible approach to the rights and duties bestowed on it by
international society? How do others evaluate whether China is
living up to its obligations as a rising power? These are among a
particular set of questions that individual essays published in this
collection reflect on and debate. Collectively, this book explores
a gap in the existing literature on the studies of Chinese foreign
policy and focuses on whether and how a particular idea-the
idea of the responsibility of power-helps to shape as well as
explain China's changing behaviour in international relations.
The rising power of China has been one important theme in
the discourse of post Cold War international relations. Recent
and current debates have revolved around two important
questions.What are the implications of the rise of China for regional
and global international order? And how should others, particularly the United States, respond to the rise of China? 1 On the first
question, a realist reading suggests that changing power relations,
particularly those of a rising power vis-a-vis the pre-eminent power
(that is, China vis-a-vis the United States), will inevitably lead to
conflicts and even war. Further, China is revisionist and destabilising
because of its historical grievances and irredentist agenda. It is
bent on challenging and changing the existing international order.
A realist reading is quick to point out that, historically, the rise of
Japan and Germany as two have-not powers has provoked major
wars. Even a liberal reading of the rise of China is likely to reinforce
the realist wisdom. China is the remaining Leninist state.
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