| ID | 149800 |
| Title Proper | Bureaucratic politics and Chinese foreign policy-making |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Qingmin, Zhang |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This article tries to bridge the bureaucratic politics model of foreign policy analysis (FPA), which is based on American foreign policy practice, and Chinese foreign policy studies. It traces the development and discusses the Chinese features of the bureaucratic politics model, and analyses the evolving bureaucratic political process of Chinese foreign policy-making. Its conclusion is that the foreign policy-making process of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has progressed from ideology-based ‘line battles’ to personal relationship (guanxi)-based in-party competition, and from factional competition under one paramount leader to government politics wherein many participants vie for different policies. As China integrates more deeply into the international community, and communist ideology loses its political validity in Chinese politics, bureaucratic politics in China exhibits more prominent Chinese cultural features, and at the same time shares greater similarities with the bureaucratic politics in western democratic countries. Therefore, to avoid rigidity, attention must be paid to variances in bureaucratic politics as applied in the Chinese context. Bridging FPA theory and Chinese foreign studies is hence both viable and beneficial for the construction of FPA theories beyond the United States and for China’s foreign policy research. |
| `In' analytical Note | Chinese Journal of International Politics Vol. 9, No.4; Winter 2016: p.435-458 |
| Journal Source | Chinese Journal of International Politics Vol: 9 No 4 |
| Key Words | Bureaucratic Politics ; Foreign Policy Analysis ; Chinese Foreign Policy |