A Hierarchical Vision of Order: Understanding Chinese Foreign Policy in Asia

231 Pages·2023·5.504 MB·English

by  Antoine Roth

Bristol Studies in East Asian International Relations
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Bristol Studies in East Asian International Relations
Series Editors: Yongjin Zhang, University of Bristol, UK,
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This series publishes cutting-edge research on the changing
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Amitav Acharya, American University, Washington D.C., US
Mark Beeson, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Barry Buzan, London School of Economics and
Political Science, UK
Zhimin Chen, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Ja Ian Chong, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Paul Evans, University of British Columbia, Canada
Rosemary Foot, University of Oxford, UK
Evelyn Goh, Australian National University, Australia
Linus Hagström, Swedish Defense University, Sweden
Miwa Hirono, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
Yuichi Hosoya, Keio University, Japan
Weixing Hu, University of Hong Kong, China
Xiaoming Huang, Victoria University of Wellington,
New Zealand
Christopher R. Hughes, London School of Economics and
Political Science, UK
Yang Jiang, Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark
Hun Joon Kim, Korea University, South Korea
Jing Men, College of Europe, Belgium
Nele Noesselt, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
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Masayuki Tadokoro, Keio University, Japan
Yu-Shan Wu, National University of Taiwan, Taiwan
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bristol-studies-in-east-asian-international-relations
A HIERARCHICAL

VISION OF ORDER
Understanding Chinese Foreign Policy
in Asia
Antoine Roth
First published in Great Britain in 2023 by
Bristol University Press
University of Bristol
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Contents

Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
1 Aspects of Asia as an International System 20
2 The Ideal of Hierarchical Order 42
3 Statecraft in the Long Imperial Era 59
4 China’s Forced Entry into International Society and the 80
Transformation of the Ideal of Hierarchical Order
5 The Pursuit of a Hierarchical Order in the People’s 101
Republic of China
6 Moral Discourse and Ritual in Contemporary 120
Chinese Diplomacy
7 Traditional Tools of Rulership in the Modern World 144
Conclusion 167
References 179
Index 213
v
newgenprepdf
Acknowledgements

Many people have contributed to the completion of this book. It is issued
from a PhD dissertation completed under the supervision of Takahara Akio
at the University of Tokyo. My most special thanks go to him for his kind
and steady support as I grappled with the challenge of constructing my
argument and finding something meaningful to say about China’s relations
with its neighbours. I must also thank Kawashima Shin for his guidance, as
well as Matsuda Yasuhiro and Kohara Masahiro for their judicious criticism
and comments. My thanks as well to fellow members of our study group at
the University, and in particular to Lim Jaewhan and Li Hao, who always
gave constructive feedback and raised stimulating questions, and to Zheng
Huangyan, who offered me friendship and precious moral support during all
my years in Tokyo. Financially, my research was supported by a scholarship
from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and
Technology, and by a grant from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of
Science. I am grateful for this too. Outside the University of Tokyo, very
special thanks must go to Felix Kuhn, with whom I shared many an evening
discussing various topics related to this book, and who shaped my thinking in
more ways than he knows. My loving gratitude, finally, to my family and to
Marica in particular. This book could not have come together without her
unconditional affection and support during my years of research and writing.
vi
Introduction

Sixty years is a particularly meaningful number in the traditional Chinese
calendar, the completion of a cycle and the beginning of a new one. On the
60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2009, marked
by a grand military parade in the centre of Beijing and many festivities,
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had indeed a lot to celebrate. It had
successfully hosted the Olympic Games and used it as a sort of coming-
out party, displaying to the world the fruits of China’s economic miracle.
While the West was mired in the deepest recession since the 1930s, China
had avoided a complete crash thanks to a massive fiscal stimulus. The G20,
where China could play a prominent role, replaced the G8 as the main forum
to discuss global economic issues. China was also about to surpass Japan to
become the second-l argest economy on the planet, an ascent symbolizing
the success of its growth strategy and the enormous economic (and military)
capabilities that it had acquired. In short, things were mostly going China’s
way and a sense that the world’s centre of gravity was shifting eastwards was
spreading in the PRC and around the world.
Against this background, an increasingly confident CCP declared that a
‘new situation’ (xin xingshi) had arisen. At the fourth plenum of the 17th CCP
Central Committee in mid- 2009, this new situation was described thusly:
The world is currently in a period of major developments, major
changes and major adjustments. The multi- polarisation of the world;
the deep development of economic globalisation; the constant
progress of science and technology; the far- reaching influence of
the international financial crisis; the new change occurring in the
structure of the world economy; the new situation appearing in the
international balance of power; the new characteristics emerging in
the global thought and culture exchanges, mixing and confrontation;
the continued dominance of developed nations in terms of economy,
science and technology, etc.; the trend toward intense comprehensive
national power competition and intense battle for all kinds of
strengths; the growing number of unstable and uncertain factors; [all
1
A HIERARCHICAL VISION OF ORDER
these trends] present new opportunities and new challenges for our
country’s development.1
This assessment referred to the uncertainties of the modern world –
transnational threats like terrorism, global warming, the erosion of state
authority due to economic globalization – but also acknowledged that
China’s power had risen compared with that of the West. It emphasized the
need for China to strengthen its position in an international arena seen as
fundamentally competitive. The ‘new situation’ thus opened the door to a
more assertive foreign policy posture to guard against new threats and seize
new opportunities to advance China’s interests. The expression became
increasingly prevalent in high-l evel speeches in the following years, especially
after the start of the presidency of Xi Jinping in 2012 (Bradley, 2014). This
all culminated with Xi’s proclamation of a ‘new era’ (xin shidai) at the 19th
Party Congress in October 2017, signalling that the change in China’s
understanding of its international environment in the previous decade or
so, and the ensuing shift in its foreign policy, had become the new normal.
How China’s foreign policy posture would adapt to meet the demands of
the ‘new situation’ became clear in the years after 2009. This period saw a
growing shift away from Deng Xiaoping’s admonishment to ‘bide our time
and keep a low profile’ (taoguang yanghui, literally ‘hide one’s brilliance and
nourish obscurity’) on the international stage. Under this policy, China had
become increasingly engaged in international affairs, but had largely done so
by embedding itself ever more deeply in existing international structures. It
emphasized its respect for prevailing norms and practices in order to reassure
other countries that its rise would be peaceful and create a stable international
environment while it focused on building its strength at home.
More recently, however, China has become less shy about taking the initiative
and using its growing resources to increase its international footprint, especially
in its neighbourhood. It has launched major economic and diplomatic
initiatives like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) or the Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI, or ‘One Belt One Road’, yidai yilu in Chinese),
asserted its territorial claims in the East and South China Sea, and expanded its
maritime activities more generally. Rhetorically as well, Chinese leaders have
displayed greater confidence and affirmed their intentions to take centre stage
in international society. In 2009, President Hu Jintao was merely encouraging
1 ‘中共中央关于加强和改进新形势下党的建设若干重大问题的决定’ [Decisions of
the CCP Central Committee on several important questions regarding the strengthening
and improvement of party construction under the new situation], People’s Daily Online,
28 September 2009. On the development, since 2000, of similar concepts leading up to
the ‘new situation’, see Heath, 2014: 116- 8.
2
INTRODUCTION
Chinese diplomats to be more ‘active’ in pursuing cooperation with other states
and in promoting multilateralism.2 By 2017, however, his successor Xi Jinping
was ready to announce that China could take the lead (yindao) in creating a
more just international order and preserving international security and stability.3
Studying China’s vision of order

Such talk of reforming international order to make it ‘more just’ is
omnipresent in speeches by Chinese leaders, but they remain rather vague on
what that concretely entails. It is clear, however, that the new order they seek
to create should see the influence of Western powers, the United States (US)
chief among them, and the liberal values they promote diminish significantly.
When studying China’s vision of international order, then, many observers
have focused on the Chinese challenge to US leadership of international
order or to liberal norms (Ikenberry, Wang, and Zhu, 2015; Jones, 2018;
Johnston, 2019; Tobin, 2020; Doshi, 2021). These studies share a focus on
the Chinese attitude towards existing international structures and norms,
although they differ in their conclusion as to how deep and comprehensive
the PRC’s challenge towards them actually is. They devote comparatively
less attention to China’s own order- building efforts. Furthermore, they tend
to reduce international order to America’s domination of it, or alternatively
to disaggregate order into a series of distinct regimes covering different issue
areas like security, trade, and the environment. By doing so, they can lose sight
of the fact that order can also be understood as something more fundamental,
a sort of ‘political constitution of world politics’ that sets the basic parameters
within which states interact with each other (Hurrell, 2007: 3).
This understanding of order, adopted in this book, has been developed
most of all by the English School of international relations theory. It is aptly
described by Evelyn Goh as ‘sustained, rule-g overned interaction amongst a
society of states that share common understandings about their primary goals
and means of conducting international affairs’ (Goh, 2013a: 169).4 Scholars in
the English School tradition have written illuminating works on China’s search
for great power status in a global international society dominated until now
2 ‘第十一次驻外使节会议在京召开’ [11th ambassadorial conference convenes in
Beijing], 20 July 2009, www.fmprc.gov.cn/ chn/ pds/ gjhdq/ gjhd qzz/ mzblwe lm/ xgxw/
t574 427.htm.
3 ‘习近平首提 ‘两个引导’ 有深意’ [The ‘Two Leaderships’ put forward by President Xi
Jinping have deep meaning], Studying China, 21 February 2017.
4 In Hedley Bull’s famous definition, international society is formed by a group of states
who, ‘conscious of certain common interests and common values ... conceive themselves
to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in
the working of common institutions’ (2002: 13).
3