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| 1 |
ID:
142867
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| Summary/Abstract |
Scholars have been studying whether China’s call for “discourse power” in international politics (initially made in 2011) is simply a tactic in the country’s now-familiar pursuit of national interests as part of its ascendency. A closer look is required to avoid mistakenly considering it as no more than the Communist Party’s propaganda, which would miss the point regarding China’s use of the phrase in the context of prevailing normative worldviews regarding fairness and justice. The current Chinese international relations (IR) literature contains a significant number of articles on discourse power (huayuquan) that discuss how calls for protecting sovereignty and rights in international affairs represent a perceived cultural need on the part of the Chinese government to articulate its own worldview while promoting its national interests. The author argues that without identifying theoretical or conceptual rationales and processes that support China’s assertion of a need for discourse power in international affairs, it is possible to overlook the important cultural roots underlying the Chinese government’s repeated demands for legitimacy in its dealings with other nation-states.
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| 2 |
ID:
164774
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| Summary/Abstract |
The authors offer a typology in support of a connection between Chinese international relations (IR) and relational IR. Specifically, a comparison scheme compatible with a sense of "self-restraint" shared by both IR types is presented for analysing the Chinese institutional style of uni-bilateralism. While most of today's relational turn discussions refer to self-restraint in multilateral contexts, the concept is mostly situated in bilateral contexts outside of Western liberal societies. China is a prominent example of how unilateral methods are being used to achieve bilateral relationality. However, China's bilateral sensibilities are very much contradicted by unilateral methods. At times, China's unilateral imposition of its own version of concession on the other party to enact its bilateral role could generate anxieties, uncertainties and potential misunderstanding rather than credibility. Distinguishing between ideal states and methods for achieving those ideal states can provide a more sophisticated understanding. Acknowledging the distinctions also enhances our understanding that China's confrontations with other states, especially the United States, do not necessarily come from discrepancies between ideal states, but instead from the use of unilateral methods the two actors pursue.
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