| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
THE METEORIC RISE of China in its economic development has laid a good foundation for the Chinese leadership to review the international status of the country and its policies of realpolitik on the world stage. Having become a mighty economic and political power center, Beijing is actively involved in international efforts to form a new, more democratic and just multipolar world. Unlike the past, reserved player in this field, who preferred, as taught by Mao Zedong, to sit on top of the mountain to watch a fight between two tigers (the USSR and the USA), China today pursues a confident and at the same time prudent foreign policy aimed to protect its national interests and further strengthen multifaceted cooperation both with the East and the West, and seeks to actively participate in the development and implementation of what it considers appropriate solutions to topical world problems. The positive change in strategic thinking of the Chinese leadership, which is becoming increasingly more pragmatic and open-minded, has also been favorably influenced by the establishment of the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership. At the same time, in the view of Henry Kissinger, a master of American diplomacy, no other country can claim such a powerful link to its ancient past and classical principles as China. In its strategic thinking (and, one might say, in its realpolitik) Beijing, he stresses, continues to prize the virtues of subtlety, patience, and indirection over feats of martial prowess.
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