Abstract
Since the implementation of the Open Policy in 1978, China has been maintaining around 30 years of peaceful coexistence with its neighbouring countries,1 even though some territorial disputes have been acute in recent years. In the historical course of China’s international relations, its relationship with the world has been gradually transforming from independence to interdependence; the linkage between domestic and international issues has been vertically strengthened and interdependence among states horizontally strengthened; and, as a consequence of this linkage and interdependence, transnational public issues have emerged as important agendas in Chinese diplomacy. On the one hand, it is evident that regional public issues have become salient to China’s diplomacy especially since the 1990s; on the other hand, students of international relations have observed that China’s international behaviour and attitude have changed dramatically. As a result, multilateralism and multilateral diplomacy are widely seen to be important principles in Chinese diplomacy.2 More and more multilateral institutions are being set up by China and its neighbouring countries in a joint effort to tackle transnational public issues. Students of international relations have paid more attention to China’s multilateral institutional diplomacy.
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Notes
For example, see M. Honghua, Goujian Zhongguo Dazhanlue Kuangjia (Constructing a Chinese Grand Strategy Framework), (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2005), pp. 264–79.
For a realist pessimistic view on East Asian cooperation, see especially J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001).
For a constructivist optimistic view on East Asian cooperation, see A. I. Johnston, Social State: China and International Institutions (1980–2000) (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008); A. I. Johnston, ‘Socialization in International Institutions: The ASEAN Way and International Relations Theory’, in G. J. Ikenberry and M. Mastanduno, eds., International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 107–62; A. Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 2001).
Harvey Starr, Anarchy, Order, and Integration: How to Mange Interdependence (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997), p. 17.
See R. Keohane and J. Nye, eds., Power and Interdependence (New York: Longman, 2001); R. Cooper, The Economics of Interdependence: Economic Policy in the Atlantic Community (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968).
K. Boulding, ‘Toward a Pure Theory of Threat Systems’, in Kenneth Boulding’s Collected Papers, Volume 5: International Systems (Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1975), pp. 137–147.
See D. Zweig, Internationalizing China: Domestic Interests and Global Linkages, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002).
Y. Fu, ‘Yazhou Xingshi he Zhongguo Waijiao (The Asia Situation and Chinese Diplomacy)’, Current Affairs Report (Beijing), November 2003.
On the role of institutions in addressing collective action problems successfully, see C. H. Su, Quanqiu Gonggong Wenti Yu Guoji Hezuo, Global Public Issues and International Cooperation: An Institutional Analysis (Shanghai: Shanghai People Publishing House, 2000), 2009 with new preface; I. Kaul, et al. (ed.) Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). More literature can be found in neo-liberal institutionalism research in IR and in the new institutional economics.
See, respectively, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao’s speeches on the 16the and 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2002 and 2007. For a detailed research on Chinese leaders’ discourse transformation over the last 60 years, see Q. M. Zhang, ‘Liushinian lai Xinzhongguo Waijiao Buju de Fazhan (Diplomatic Composition of China over the Last 60 Years: A Text Analysis of Political Reports to the CPC National Congress)’, in Foreign Affairs Review (Beijing), 26:4 (2009), 32–42.
See R. Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton University Press, 1984).
Z. L. Yu, Y. G. Chen and C. H. Su, Ershiyi Shiji Quanqiu Zhengzhi Fanshi Yanjiu, A Study of Global Politics Paradigms in the 21st Century (Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2005).
Students of international studies have paid more attention to China’s engaging international institutions; see especially A. I. Johnston, Social States: China in International Institutions, 1980–2000 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008). C. H. Su, ‘Zhongguo Yu Guoji Zhidu (China and International Institutions: A Research Agenda)’, World Economic and Politics, 10 (2002).
C. H. Su, ‘China in the World and the World in China: The Domestic Impacts of International Institutions on China’, in David Zweig and Chen Zhimin, eds., International Political Economy and China’s Reforms (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 62–76.
It is useful here to differentiate Zhoubian institutions with the tributary system that was operated over the last 2000 years before the twentieth century in East Asia. In the tributary system, the East Asia system was dominated by China, the sole middle kingdom, and was operated by the principle of hierarchical arrangements. It was a regime for cooperation between ancient China and some countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Zhoubian institutions are also a series of institutional arrangements for cooperation between China and its neighbouring countries; however, these arrangements are initiated and reached jointly, rather than enforced unilaterally, through negotiation by China and its neighbouring countries. Inter-state relations in this micro system are obviously not characterized by a dominant-subordinate relationship like in the tributary system;they operate on the five principles of peaceful coexistence. On East Asia’s hierarchical security order, see E. Goh, ‘Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia’, International Security, 32:3 (2007–2008), 113–157.
For recent research on effective multilateralism, see A. Alexandroff, ed., Can the World be Governed? Possibilities for Effective Multilateralism (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008).
On informal groups, see J. Prantl, The U.N. Security Council and Informal Groups of States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). In fact, the informal groups are quite active in regional and global governance networks, such as in G20, IMF and WTO, as well as in the East Asia governance structure.
For recent research on Chinese local governments’ engaging regional governance, see C. H. Su, ‘Zhongguo Difang Zhengfu Yu Ciquyu Hezuo (Chinese Local Governments and Sub-regional Cooperation: Dynamics, Behavior, and Regimes)’, World Economics and Politics (Beijing), 5 (2010).
N. Lardy, Integrating China into the Global Economy, (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution Press, 2002); H. Jacobson and M. Oksenberg, China’s Participation in the IMF, the World Bank, and GATT: Toward a Global Economic Order (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1990).
On the differences in the classical socialism and market socialism systems, see J. Kornai, The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism (Princeton: The Princeton University Press, 1992), especially see chapter 14 on foreign economic relations, pp. 333–359.
For a view that assumes that China’s role in international institutions has been changed from system-transformer to system-maintainer since 1978, see S. Kim, ‘China and the United Nations’, in E. C. Economy and M. Oksenkerg, eds., China Joins the World (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1999); however, in Chinese official rhetoric, system-maintainer is not used often, the recent labels are system-participant, system-builder and system-contributor.
C. H. Su, ‘China in the World and the World in China: The Domestic Impact of International Institutions on China’s Politics, 1978–2000’, in D. Zweig and Z. M. Chen eds., China’s Reform and International Political Economy, (New York: Routledge, 2007) pp. 68–72.
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Changhe, S. (2013). China’s Approach to Multilateralism in East Asia. In: Prantl, J. (eds) Effective Multilateralism. St Antony’ Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137312983_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137312983_4
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