Conclusion: China and International Society

Abstract

Whether China has been “socialized” into the international system and to what extent China’s emergence has transformed the international system depend on what aspects of international society are viewed as definitive and how one regards authority within the international system.² The United States remains the leading power in the world today. However, neither its authority nor its power is absolute. Realist theories of international relations and realist analysis of foreign policy leave secondary powers with just two possible alternatives: “power balancing” that focuses on the maintenance of a strategic equilibrium, or “bandwagoning” that views hegemony as conducive to peace. A third, more distant, possibility for secondary powers is to “challenge” the structure of the international system.³ China’s relative power position in the world is now the best it has been in at least two centuries. China, however, is far from either challenging or “balancing” the United States. Its diplomatic repertoire is broader and more nuanced. But more important, the means that China has deployed to improve its relative power have committed China to institutions and norms that virtually prevent it from pursuing an alternative to the existing international system.

Right now, the survival of the Chinese nation is no longer under major threat. Rather, comprehensive economic, scientific-technological and social development is the most concentrated features of the national interest. Economic development is the basis for the solution of all of China’s problems.¹

Zhang Wannian