Chengxin Pan (editor)_ Emilian Kavalski (editor) - Chinas Rise and Rethinking International Relations Theory-Bristol University Press (2022)

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<p>China’s Rise</p><p>and Rethinking</p><p>International</p><p>Relations Theory</p><p>EDITED BY</p><p>CHENGXIN PAN AND EMILIAN KAVALSKI</p><p>East Asian International RelationsBristol Studies in</p><p>This series publishes cutting-edge research on the changing</p><p>international politics of East Asia. It covers the security dynamics, the</p><p>causes of conflict and cooperation, and the ongoing transformation</p><p>of the region, as well as the impact of East Asia on the wider global</p><p>order.</p><p>The series contributes to theoretical debates within the field of</p><p>International Relations. Topics studied in East Asia can shed fresh</p><p>light on disciplinary debates while the theoretical insights can</p><p>challenge and enrich the propositions of mainstream IR theories</p><p>which have been derived mostly from the European experience. In</p><p>welcoming theoretically informed and theoretically innovative works,</p><p>this series plays an important role in developing and establishing new</p><p>Asian schools of thought in International Relations theory.</p><p>Also available</p><p>China Risen?</p><p>Studying Chinese Global Power</p><p>By Shaun Breslin</p><p>Find out more at</p><p>bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/</p><p>bristol-studies-in-east-asian-international-relations</p><p>The Responsibility to Provide in Southeast Asia</p><p>Towards an Ethical Explanation</p><p>By See Seng Tan</p><p>Coming soon</p><p>Middle Powers in Asia Pacific Multilateralism</p><p>A Di�erential Framework</p><p>By Sarah Teo</p><p>Bristol Studies in East Asian International</p><p>Relations</p><p>Series Editors: Yongjin Zhang, University of Bristol, UK,</p><p>Shogo Suzuki, University of Manchester, UK and</p><p>Peter Kristensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark</p><p>International advisory board</p><p>Find out more at</p><p>bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/</p><p>bristol-studies-in-east-asian-international-relations</p><p>Amitav Acharya, American University, Washington D.C., US</p><p>Mark Beeson, University of Western Australia, Australia</p><p>Barry Buzan, London School of Economics, UK</p><p>Zhimin Chen, Fudan University, Shanghai, China</p><p>Ja Ian Chong, National University of Singapore, Singapore</p><p>Paul Evans, University of British Columbia, Canada</p><p>Rosemary Foot, Oxford University, UK</p><p>Evelyn Goh, Australian National University, Australia</p><p>Linus Hagström, Swedish Defense University, Sweden</p><p>Miwa Hirono, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan</p><p>Yuichi Hosoya, Keio University, Japan</p><p>Weixing Hu, University of Hong Kong, China</p><p>Xiaoming Huang, Victoria University of Wellington,</p><p>New Zealand</p><p>Christopher R. Hughes, London School of Economics, UK</p><p>Yang Jiang, Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark</p><p>Hun Joon Kim, Korea University, South Korea</p><p>Jing Men, College of Europe, Belgium</p><p>Nele Noesselt, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany</p><p>John Ravenhill, University of Waterloo, Canada</p><p>Masayuki Tadokoro, Keio University, Japan</p><p>Yu-Shan Wu, National University of Taiwan, Taiwan</p><p>Bristol Studies in East Asian International</p><p>Relations</p><p>Series Editors: Yongjin Zhang, University of Bristol, UK,</p><p>Shogo Suzuki, University of Manchester, UK and</p><p>Peter Kristensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark</p><p>CHINA’S RISE</p><p>AND RETHINKING</p><p>INTERNATIONAL</p><p>RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>Edited by</p><p>Chengxin Pan and Emilian Kavalski</p><p>First published in Great Britain in 2022 by</p><p>Bristol University Press</p><p>University of Bristol</p><p>1- 9 Old Park Hill</p><p>Bristol</p><p>BS2 8BB</p><p>UK</p><p>t: +44 (0)117 954 5940</p><p>e: bup- info@bristol.ac.uk</p><p>Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk</p><p>© Bristol University Press 2022</p><p>British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data</p><p>A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library</p><p>ISBN 978- 1- 5292- 1294- 5 hardcover</p><p>ISBN 978- 1- 5292- 1295- 2 ePub</p><p>ISBN 978- 1- 5292- 1296- 9 ePdf</p><p>The right of Chengxin Pan and Emilian Kavalski to be identified as editors of this work has been</p><p>asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.</p><p>All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or</p><p>transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or</p><p>otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press.</p><p>Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If,</p><p>however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher.</p><p>The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors</p><p>and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The</p><p>University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to</p><p>persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication.</p><p>Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender,</p><p>race, disability, age and sexuality.</p><p>Cover design by Chris at blu inc</p><p>Image credit: Stocksy_txp899a702ckXy100</p><p>Bristol University Press uses environmentally responsible print partners.</p><p>Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd,</p><p>Croydon, CR0 4YY</p><p>v</p><p>Contents</p><p>List of Abbreviations vii</p><p>Notes on Contributors ix</p><p>Acknowledgements xi</p><p>Introduction: The Rise of China and Its Challenges to International</p><p>Relations Theory</p><p>1</p><p>Chengxin Pan and Emilian Kavalski</p><p>PART I Theorizing China’s Rise: Beyond Eurocentric</p><p>Knowledge Production</p><p>1 Putting China in the World: From Universal Theory to</p><p>Contextual Theorizing</p><p>23</p><p>John Agnew</p><p>2 Heart and Soul for World Politics: Advaita Monism and</p><p>Daoist Trialectics in International Relations</p><p>42</p><p>L.H.M. Ling</p><p>3 What Can Guanxi International Relations Be About? 62</p><p>Emilian Kavalski</p><p>4 Friendly Rise? China, the West and the Ontology of Relations 83</p><p>Astrid H.M. Nordin and Graham M. Smith</p><p>5 Re- Worlding the ‘West’ in Post- Western International</p><p>Relations: The ‘Theory Migrant’ of Tianxia in the Anglosphere</p><p>102</p><p>Yih- Jye Hwang, Raoul Bunskoek and Chih- yu Shih</p><p>PART II Theorizing China’s Rise: Critical Reflection on</p><p>Mainstream Frameworks</p><p>6 China in the International Order: A Contributor or a</p><p>Challenger?</p><p>125</p><p>Wang Jisi</p><p>7 China’s Rise in English School Perspective 145</p><p>Barry Buzan</p><p>vi</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>8 Deconstructing the Established Westphalian Architecture in</p><p>Light of China’s Rise</p><p>168</p><p>Hung- jen Wang</p><p>9 Sino- capitalism’s Dialectical Processes and International</p><p>Relations Theory</p><p>190</p><p>Christopher A. McNally</p><p>10 China’s Rise as Holographic Transition: A Relational</p><p>Challenge to International Relations’ Newtonian Ontology</p><p>210</p><p>Chengxin Pan</p><p>Epilogue: Towards International Relations beyond Binaries 234</p><p>Emilian Kavalski and Chengxin Pan</p><p>Index 245</p><p>vii</p><p>List of Abbreviations</p><p>AIIB Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank</p><p>APEC Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation</p><p>ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations</p><p>BCIM Bangladesh- China- India- Myanmar</p><p>BIT Bilateral Investment Treaty</p><p>BRI Belt and Road Initiative</p><p>BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa</p><p>CCP Chinese Communist Party</p><p>CICA Conference on Interaction and Confidence- Building</p><p>Measures in Asia</p><p>CPC Communist Party of China</p><p>CPTPP Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-</p><p>Pacific Partnership</p><p>ES English School</p><p>EU European Union</p><p>FIE foreign- invested enterprise</p><p>GIS global international society</p><p>GMS Great Mekong Subregion</p><p>GPM great power management</p><p>HSR Health Silk Road</p><p>IMF International Monetary Fund</p><p>IR International Relations</p><p>KMT Kuomingtang</p><p>NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization</p><p>NDB New Development Bank</p><p>NGO non- governmental organization</p><p>PKOs peacekeeping operations</p><p>PRC People’s Republic of China</p><p>R2P Responsibility to Protect</p><p>TPP Trans- Pacific Partnership</p><p>viii</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership</p><p>UN United Nations</p><p>UNSC United Nations Security Council</p><p>WMD weapons of mass destruction</p><p>WTO World Trade Organization</p><p>ix</p><p>Notes on Contributors</p><p>John Agnew is Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University</p><p>of California, Los Angeles (USA)</p><p>of making</p><p>a case for contextual theorizing. Each task in sequence helps to make the</p><p>overall argument. The first task is to show that the making of IR theory</p><p>has been anything but universal. I rehearse the ways in which knowledge</p><p>is made and circulates, arguing that there is never a ‘view from nowhere’.</p><p>Knowledge of human society is always ‘local, situated, and embedded’</p><p>(Shapin, 1998: 6). The main point is to understand that theories arise</p><p>in distinctive geographical contexts. The theories then can ‘travel’ and</p><p>influence thinking elsewhere but only if they have powerful sponsors. This</p><p>is not to endorse a simple epistemic relativism but to insist that we need</p><p>to know how knowledge is made and travels in order to judge how well it</p><p>actually ‘works’ (Agnew, 2007). Dominant IR theories are based on a radical</p><p>separation of the domestic and international and rely on European and</p><p>American historical experience as a source of analogies for understanding</p><p>the world tout court.</p><p>The second task is to examine recent discussions of ‘Chinese’ versus</p><p>‘Western’ approaches to world politics in terms of the geography of</p><p>knowledge. I am particularly interested in how China’s rising material</p><p>significance is typically interpreted in terms of either/ or thinking (historic</p><p>repetition versus novelty, and so on) and how this can be interrogated</p><p>to provide an alternative conception of ‘China in the world’ – not just a</p><p>repetition of other ‘cases’ or the projection of Chinese exceptionalism but of</p><p>the intersection between Chinese agency and the wider global environment,</p><p>including the diffusion of ideas about IR. The rise of China particularly</p><p>represents a crisis for the Eurocentric ‘modern geopolitical imagination’</p><p>(Agnew, 2003), which has become second nature in conventional IR theory.</p><p>This is a point repeatedly emphasized by some historians of Asia in drawing</p><p>PUTTING CHINA IN THE WORLD</p><p>25</p><p>attention to alternative modernities to that of the West offered by mainstream</p><p>IR (Woodside, 2006; Duara, 2015).</p><p>The third task is to reflect something of the space– time crisis in the</p><p>relationship of ‘China’ to the world since its reopening to the world in the</p><p>late 1970s and the types of thinking about international relations that have</p><p>emerged in China in this overall context. I suggest there are four currently</p><p>popular IR narratives in China whose provenance and jockeying for influence</p><p>over China’s foreign policy provide a better basis for understanding ‘China</p><p>in the world’ than simply importing a singular theory from elsewhere. In</p><p>brief compass, these are the Pacific Rim, Confucian- New Orientalist,</p><p>realpolitik, and IR with Chinese characteristics narratives. It is the politics</p><p>around these narratives that will determine what kind of knowledge about</p><p>IR and political practice China will contribute to the wider world. The</p><p>making of Chinese foreign policy is currently the outcome of varied domestic</p><p>and external contingencies, partly because the geographical and historical</p><p>limits of ‘China’ are undergoing a fundamental redefinition as the Chinese</p><p>government and other Chinese actors become more important in the world</p><p>(for example Woon, 2018; Foot and Goh, 2019).</p><p>‘Familiar’ analogies and the limited geographic origins</p><p>of IR theory</p><p>The strength of the conventional wisdom about international relations</p><p>should not be underestimated. It draws from a pool of knowledge about an</p><p>idealized European and North American history that gives it an authority</p><p>well beyond the borders of the world in which it has developed. Through the</p><p>use of metaphor and analogy, IR theory projects from a limited geographical</p><p>experience onto the world at large a set of presumptions about the nature</p><p>of statehood, empire, anarchy and so on that make sense of the larger world</p><p>in familiar terms (for example Acharya and Buzan, 2017). So, it is not so</p><p>much a lack of knowledge or curiosity about the world beyond the confines</p><p>of Euro- America that is at issue. It is the employment of terms of discourse</p><p>that are rarely investigated for their particularity. They are simply presumed</p><p>to be universal.</p><p>From this perspective, metaphor is a crucial human talent. Metaphors are</p><p>implicit generalizations whose implications can always be tested against both</p><p>natural and social reality, even if this is all too rarely the case with the ones</p><p>used in international relations. The ‘well’ of metaphors we draw from has</p><p>narrow historical- geographical confines. Nevertheless, some metaphors can</p><p>be judged as more or less fruitful and helpful than others. Thus, for example,</p><p>much of the recent explosion of writing about the United States as ‘empire’</p><p>is based on the explicit invocation of historical analogy to this or that prior</p><p>empire, the British and the Roman usually, with little if any attention to</p><p>26</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>minimalist criteria for what makes an empire, the changed circumstances of</p><p>the day, and whether other terms or concepts might not better capture the</p><p>realities of the moment. Today, for example, technological innovation diffuses</p><p>readily across national borders, and global production chains transcend nation</p><p>states, producing a world in which national territories and economies are</p><p>increasingly disjointed. Territorial expansion is no longer the best approach</p><p>to global hegemony.</p><p>A story of historical continuity or repetition through the use of a recycled</p><p>historical- geographical analogy thus trumps one of change or adaptation.</p><p>Analogies are a type of metaphor that involve comparison with a supposedly</p><p>exemplary, similar or congruent situation elsewhere and/ or at another time.</p><p>For example, ‘apartheid’ in South Africa as it was before 1994 is employed</p><p>in relation to Israel’s present- day behaviour in Palestine, notwithstanding</p><p>fundamental differences in the geopolitical context concerning how</p><p>settlement and movement patterns and restrictions have occurred. The</p><p>term serves to seemingly familiarize a situation but by abstracting it from</p><p>its actual geographical context.</p><p>But the familiar language of IR theory is also hard to bypass for similar</p><p>reasons even as it is imposed onto worlds for which it is possibly ill- suited or</p><p>ill- matched. Most important is the case of an essential and undifferentiated</p><p>‘statehood’ based on the model of a historic France or the United States,</p><p>assuming that all other polities around the world conform more or less to</p><p>the history and capacities of the ideal- type state. Full modern personhood</p><p>has become attached to the image of the state, based in these examples, as</p><p>its progenitor. Thus, imitating the originals such as France or the United</p><p>States is the central moment of becoming modern for, for example,</p><p>Russia, India or China. This Western ‘culturism’ underwrites the self-</p><p>evident historical failure of such polities as China (Wang, 2011: 21– 2;</p><p>also Wang, 2014: 25– 7). Failure to democratize in the same way as the</p><p>United States, for example, is seen as an aberration, when the West itself</p><p>has often failed to live up to its own lofty standards of democratic practice</p><p>for long periods of time. ‘Illiberal tendencies’ worldwide today suggest the</p><p>need to rethink the easy association between the West and an essentially</p><p>‘democratic’ modernity.</p><p>The historical geopolitics that brought Europe and North America to</p><p>the fore globally from the 16th century to the present is seen as a simple</p><p>‘social fact’ that can be taken for granted as animating world politics in its</p><p>entirety. Whatever its precise economic and political roots, however, this</p><p>global dominance has enabled the projection of a specific set of political</p><p>norms onto the world at large. The ‘modern geopolitical imagination’ refers</p><p>to a way of thinking that privileges the idea of zero- sum conflicts between</p><p>Great Powers in worldwide competition for ‘top dog’ status and can be</p><p>thought of as a ‘system’ for visualizing the world with its most significant</p><p>PUTTING CHINA IN</p><p>THE WORLD</p><p>27</p><p>roots in the nature of the European encounter with the rest of the world in</p><p>the 16th and 17th centuries.</p><p>The analogy to an essentially European statehood also feeds into the strong</p><p>tendency to radically distinguish a worldwide modern state system without</p><p>any history except for a sudden moment in 17th- century Europe when</p><p>it sprang to life: the myth of the Peace of Westphalia. Widely recognized</p><p>now as a problematic starting point, it nevertheless still provides the term</p><p>‘Westphalian’ to describe the essential nature of the modern state system.</p><p>This reification of a seemingly timeless system, with new members acceding</p><p>as they are recognized by existing ones, leaves little room to acknowledge,</p><p>let alone carefully consider, how polities of various types have fared around</p><p>the world with varying elements of empire, statehood as typically understood,</p><p>and clan- tribal character about them (for example Halperin and Palen,</p><p>2015). The world political map with its clearly defined borders imposes an</p><p>image of geographical order on the world that is completely state- territorial</p><p>(Agnew, 1994).</p><p>In sum, and contradictory to the territorial understanding of statehood (as</p><p>vested in juridical sovereignty), given that each state is presumed to provide</p><p>equivalent sovereignty within its territory to all others, in geopolitical space</p><p>sovereignty is up for grabs as states compete for global power and influence</p><p>and weak states succumb to more powerful ones. This hierarchical and often</p><p>imperialist geopolitical system is one that has come to be the byword of</p><p>the political elites who occupy seats of power in the most important Great</p><p>Powers, hitherto mainly in Europe and North America. They presume that</p><p>Rising Powers, like China, will follow their example exactly (for example</p><p>Mearsheimer, 2006; Friedberg, 2011; Allison, 2017).</p><p>The making and the travels of dominant IR theory</p><p>Indeed, much of what today goes for ‘international relations theory’ is the</p><p>projection onto the world at large of US- originated academic ideas about</p><p>the nature of statehood and the world economy (for example Kristensen,</p><p>2015). This follows a mixture of largely mid- 20th- century European premises</p><p>about states as unitary actors, and American ones about economies as liberal</p><p>and open (Inayatullah and Rupert, 1994). The theory reflects the application</p><p>of criteria about how best to model a presumably hostile world drawn from</p><p>selected aspects of US experience and a US- based reading of world history.</p><p>My point is not that knowledge of world politics is simply a coercive</p><p>imposition of the view from some places onto others. Rather, the dominant</p><p>ways in which intellectuals and political elites around the world have come</p><p>to think about world politics are not the result of either an open ‘search’</p><p>for the best perspective or theory or a reflection of an essentially ‘local’</p><p>perspective. More specifically, the most prestigious repertoires of thinking</p><p>28</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>about world politics represent the historical emergence of theoretical genres</p><p>intimately associated with specific times and places that circulate and adapt</p><p>in association with the spheres of influence of schools and authors that have</p><p>the best reputations and which, in turn, reflect the current geopolitical order.</p><p>US universities have been particularly important in this process.</p><p>The presumption of my approach here is that global structures of political</p><p>inequality underwrite whose imagination gets to dominate globally in</p><p>theorizing about world politics. This in turn has obvious implications for</p><p>any liberatory or democratic politics. In other words, thinking about world</p><p>politics reflects the relative hierarchy of power within world politics. Yet,</p><p>much dominant thinking about international relations usually makes claims</p><p>that either obscure or limit the degree to which the world to which it</p><p>refers is seen as hierarchical. I first provide some premises upon which the</p><p>argument is based and then use the case of Chinese examples of thinking</p><p>about international relations to illustrate the argument.</p><p>The ‘marketplace of ideas’ is never a level playing field. There is thus</p><p>geopolitics to knowledge production and circulation (for example Zhang</p><p>and Kristensen, 2017). What knowledge becomes ‘normalized’ or dominant</p><p>and what is marginalized have something to do with who is doing the</p><p>proposing and where they are located (Agnew, 2005). In the context of world</p><p>politics what is recognized as ‘serious’ knowledge is socially conditioned by</p><p>the rituals, routines and recruitment practices of powerful educational and</p><p>research institutions. At a world scale perhaps the outstanding feature of the</p><p>past centuries has been the way most places have been incorporated into flows</p><p>of knowledge dominated by Europeans and extensions of Europe overseas,</p><p>such as the United States. This is the story, in Eric Wolf ’s (1982) evocative</p><p>phrase, of Europe and the People without History. Consider, for example, how</p><p>recent conceptions of ‘China’ in the United States and elsewhere still rely</p><p>to a degree on understandings established during the term that John Hay</p><p>served as US Secretary of State at the turn of the 20th century involving</p><p>the Open Door policy and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Blanchard, 2013).</p><p>Of course, knowledge about world politics (or anything else) from</p><p>one place is not necessarily incommensurable or unintelligible relative to</p><p>knowledge produced elsewhere. Cross- cultural communication goes on</p><p>all the time without everything being lost in translation. Cultures in the</p><p>modern world never exist in isolation and are themselves assemblages of</p><p>people with often cross- cutting identities and commitments (Lukes, 2000).</p><p>From this viewpoint, culture is ‘an idiom or vehicle of inter- subjective life,</p><p>but not its foundation or final cause’ (Jackson, 2002: 125). Be that as it may,</p><p>knowledge creation and dissemination are never innocent of at least weak</p><p>ontological commitments, be they national, class, gender or something else.</p><p>But the history of knowledge circulation suggests that rarely are ideas simply</p><p>restricted within rigid cultural boundaries. This is a deficiency of postcolonial</p><p>PUTTING CHINA IN THE WORLD</p><p>29</p><p>approaches that simply carve the world up into simple oppositional zones</p><p>like Global North and Global South. Rather, with powerful sponsors,</p><p>international and transnational networks arise to carry and embed ideas</p><p>from place to place (for example Sapiro, 2009).</p><p>The intellectually dominant realist tradition of US IR theory (although</p><p>even its opponents, such as liberals and idealists, share numerous assumptions</p><p>with it) is based on a central assumption of ‘anarchy’ beyond state borders</p><p>(Agnew, 1994; Powell, 1994). Realist theory was a reaction against the</p><p>behavioural trend in US political science in the 1940s and 1950s that</p><p>presumed a science of politics could be founded entirely based on rational</p><p>principles of individual behaviour. It was also driven by the desire to keep</p><p>close connections between academic study of world politics and practitioners</p><p>in a furthering of Staatslehre or the proffering of advice to political leaders</p><p>on the basis of profound and presumably unchangeable truths about human</p><p>nature and the state system (Guilhot, 2008). It should be a ‘special field’</p><p>separate from the other social sciences. Relative unease over whether or not</p><p>‘international relations’ constituted or could constitute a separate ‘discipline’</p><p>was never paralleled until recently by fears that it might well be a ‘science’</p><p>based largely on projecting American views onto the world at large (for</p><p>example Kripendorff, 1989; Kahler, 1993).</p><p>What China can do for IR theorizing</p><p>Given its changing material- geopolitical status, the situation of China in</p><p>relation to IR theory is no longer as simple as that of an importer of American</p><p>IR theory. It would also be a mistake to see all of the many commentators</p><p>and contributors to debate over Chinese foreign policy as working from</p><p>exactly the same script. By examining the publications of numerous think</p><p>tanks and universities as revealed by their websites and academic outlets,</p><p>I identify four relatively distinctive streams of narrative that currently seem</p><p>to inspire most constructions of ‘China’ and its place in the world among</p><p>Chinese policy entrepreneurs and intellectuals. After briefly identifying</p><p>them, I turn to discussing each in more detail including its sponsors and</p><p>their position within the current Chinese political- institutional constellation.</p><p>At the close I suggest that the opening up of China since the late 1970s and</p><p>the fragmented authoritarianism of the regime tend to make a jockeying</p><p>for influence among the narratives a real possibility. Future Chinese foreign</p><p>policy will reflect this fact. This emphasis on the central importance of</p><p>political agency in the face of divergent intellectual- policy influences would</p><p>benefit IR theorizing in general well beyond Chinese shores.</p><p>In brief compass, the four streams of narrative are as follows. If the Pacific</p><p>Rim story developed in the 1980s and 1990s is somewhat in eclipse, it still</p><p>has considerable political- economic dynamism behind it and not a little</p><p>30</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>Chinese history of its own, particularly in respect of the powerful diaspora</p><p>influence of China around the world. The new Orientalism narrative is the</p><p>most invested in the revival of Confucianism as a guiding hand but relies</p><p>on idealized images of the Chinese past that also produces hostile as well</p><p>as pacific postures towards neighbouring states and the world at large.</p><p>Third, the ‘nationalist geopolitik’ grouping is much less influential than the</p><p>Orientalist, except perhaps among elements in the military, but is by far the</p><p>most aggressive in finding much of its inspiration in the major revisionist</p><p>powers of the 20th century: Nazi Germany and militarist Japan. Finally, the</p><p>attempt at creating an IR theory ‘with Chinese characteristics’ represents the</p><p>fourth type of IR narrative as I have defined them. This is the seemingly most</p><p>benign and as yet has had the least effect in terms of formulating perspectives</p><p>that can feed into policy making. But that has long been a problem for IR</p><p>theory without Chinese characteristics as well.</p><p>What I wish to challenge most forcefully is the popular view that China’s</p><p>future ‘place in the world’ can be either simply read off from a familiar story</p><p>told by those oblivious to Chinese discussions about the ‘nature’ of China</p><p>and the effects that this will have on what will constitute Chinese foreign</p><p>policy in the years ahead or by reproducing one of the Chinese accounts as</p><p>‘the’ single truthful one. As William Callahan (2011: 12) says: ‘To take China</p><p>seriously as an emerging world power, we need to understand how Chinese</p><p>scholars and policymakers imagine their future on the international stage.’</p><p>Critical examination of what is being imagined and how it affects China’s</p><p>foreign relations then becomes the goal.</p><p>Chinese IR narratives</p><p>As China becomes a Great Power in the Western sense of the phrase, an</p><p>economic and potentially military behemoth, its leaders and intellectual</p><p>elites must struggle with how to respond. Given that ‘China’ has had a</p><p>centuries- long existence as some sort of polity, this task is made particularly</p><p>difficult by the rich history of geographical forms and modes of rule that</p><p>have characterized it down the years (Wang, 2014). Over the past 30 years,</p><p>as modern China has opened up to the world and returned to mining its past</p><p>for guidance in the present, its intellectuals and policy entrepreneurs have</p><p>increasingly produced IR narratives that rely heavily on past ‘experience’ as</p><p>a guide to the present. In universities, think tanks, party schools, the military</p><p>and among journalists, a class of ‘public intellectuals’ has grown up at least</p><p>semi- independent of the ruling party- state (for the concept of Chinese</p><p>public intellectuals see, for example, Cheek, 2006).</p><p>Such narratives are inevitably selective. It is what is selected that is of</p><p>most interest. Some narratives emphasize martial and expansionist elements</p><p>from the Chinese past, others pick up on more pacific strains in Chinese</p><p>PUTTING CHINA IN THE WORLD</p><p>31</p><p>cultural history. A number of different refrains characterize the narratives</p><p>about China’s place in the world and its consequences. All of these invoke</p><p>historical events and past geographies of China in their understandings of</p><p>the present and their directions toward the future. Each has a distinctive</p><p>geopolitical vision intrinsic to it. Different Chinese policy entrepreneurs</p><p>and intellectuals and their foreign collaborators and influences have seen</p><p>their narratives rise and fall in relative popularity over time. Of course,</p><p>proponents see their narratives as the ‘best’ ones in the sense of providing</p><p>the truest accounts. They are associated with different intellectual venues</p><p>across China having differing relationships to the Communist Party and to</p><p>various governmental institutions. ‘China’ is not the singular location that</p><p>constant invocation of the country’s name implies. Even with a powerful</p><p>centralized state and the omnipresent Communist Party, there is still a relative</p><p>plurality of sites and settings across which interests jockey for influence and</p><p>prestige (for example Duara, 1995). In the end, however, it is which ones</p><p>among the narratives that prove most influential to Chinese governments</p><p>and in the wider world and what governments choose to do on that basis</p><p>that really matters. But we should not simply leap to the end of the chain</p><p>before establishing the range of positions in play.</p><p>As several commentators have noted, increased resort to historical events</p><p>and philosophical concepts mined from deep in Chinese history has become</p><p>de rigueur (for example Callahan, 2011; Rozman, 2012; Wang, 2014). At</p><p>the same time, however, a deeply territorialized vision not only of China’s</p><p>past and present, but also of its future inspires those narratives that are now</p><p>most ascendant.</p><p>The idea of the Pacific Rim (or even that of Asia- Pacific) now seems</p><p>somewhat dated. Yet in the 1990s it was central to much debate about the</p><p>integration of the newly opened China into world politics inside as well as</p><p>outside China. It is one- sided to see this narrative of China’s place in the</p><p>world as simply a US imposition (Connery, 1994). The focus on China as</p><p>part of a larger Pacific or Asian world – the terms vary – was designed to</p><p>place China at the centre of a web of connections around the massive Chinese</p><p>diaspora in Southeast Asia and around the Pacific Ocean, paying particular</p><p>attention to how a widespread network of nodes and territories had played</p><p>a disproportionate role in fostering the opening up and economic growth</p><p>of China for the past four decades. This rendition of ‘China in the world’</p><p>gives central place to trade and investment relations at the regional level.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, the bureaucracy devoted to trade and opening China to</p><p>foreign markets has tended to favour this narrative. Dubbed ‘Rimspeak’ by</p><p>Bruce Cumings (1998), rather than celebrating an essential Chinese identity</p><p>locked into a historically given territory, this narrative sees China as a central</p><p>geographical moment in a new geoeconomic logic knitting together the</p><p>Pacific Rim as an alternative global focus to the previously dominant North</p><p>32</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>Atlantic core. Today some views of China in relation to Asian regionalism and</p><p>plans for regional- level cooperation (even the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),</p><p>operating well beyond Pacific Asia) continue to take off from this essentially</p><p>outward- looking perspective (for example Pan and Lo, 2015; Ye, 2015).</p><p>What was lacking in the older formulation, it now seems clear, was much</p><p>to connect the contemporary vision to a positive rendering of the Chinese</p><p>past. Its proponents seem to have thought that projecting what seemed to be</p><p>the dominant trend of the present into the future was sufficient justification.</p><p>Yet, the emphasis on the diaspora, in particular, always ran the risk of bringing</p><p>to mind, implicitly if not explicitly, the years of Chinese ‘humiliation’ at</p><p>the hands of foreigners and the emigration of Chinese in search of greener</p><p>pastures elsewhere than those left at home. The apparent postcolonial and</p><p>post- territorial moorings of the Pacific Rim concept have also made it</p><p>seem less attractive in China in the face of the country’s seemingly self-</p><p>sufficient economic growth, the crisis in global finance, and fears articulated</p><p>in the United States of the military ‘threat’ emanating reflex- like from an</p><p>economically vibrant China.</p><p>It is the Orientalist vision that has probably been most visible among</p><p>popular Chinese writers and government- oriented think tanks over the</p><p>past ten years or so (for example Zhu, 2009; McGann, 2012). But this has</p><p>older roots in the common insistence by many authorities, both Chinese</p><p>and not, of Chinese history for most of its course down until the 20th</p><p>century as representing the workings of a Sino- centric world system (for</p><p>example Wang, 2017). In some accounts, Confucian adages often provide</p><p>the socio- psychological basis to a Chinese exceptionalism that is completely</p><p>different from anything to be found anywhere else. Prominent in certain</p><p>popular works by Western writers (for example Fan, 2011), this type of</p><p>narrative based on an idealized image of China’s past also has many Chinese</p><p>proponents (for example Ye and Long, 2013).</p><p>Such intellectuals and the policy makers who consume their ideas have</p><p>been looking to venerable concepts such as tianxia (天下) to rethink empire</p><p>and world order in a register drawn from Chinese intellectual history but</p><p>applied to the contemporary world (for example Zhao Tingyang, 2005;</p><p>2011; Chapter 5). Thus, for example, Yan Xuetong (2011) borrows from</p><p>the ancient Chinese philosopher Xunzi to construct a hierarchical- realist</p><p>perspective predicting that a ‘balanced’ economic- political- military approach</p><p>to Chinese foreign relations will produce better outcomes all round than</p><p>would a China emphasizing economic growth alone. Others look back</p><p>not so much for philosophical inspiration as to identify popular ‘historical</p><p>traditions’, such as some variety of Confucianism, or historical features, such</p><p>as the lack of a ‘balance- of- power’ between polities in East Asia (see, for</p><p>example Carlson, 2011; Zhang, 2015) to underpin their prognostications</p><p>about contemporary world politics.</p><p>PUTTING CHINA IN THE WORLD</p><p>33</p><p>Somewhat less visible has been the discovery of pre- Second World War</p><p>German and Japanese geopolitics reframed in Chinese terms. Termed ‘the</p><p>geopolitik turn’ by Christopher Hughes (2011), this type of narrative, epitomized</p><p>by such books as China Dream (Liu Mingfu, 2010) and the immensely popular</p><p>novel (and now film) Wolf Totem (Jiang Rong, 2004), focuses on China’s need</p><p>to protect access to resources around the world through the projection of sea</p><p>power. It is associated with the Chinese navy, other elements in the military,</p><p>and Han nationalists. To one degree or another, all of these accounts recycle</p><p>old geopolitical nostrums equivalent to Lebensraum, organismic statehood, and</p><p>racial categorization. They are characterized by the same ‘moral exceptionalism’</p><p>as the older German model. China is sui generis. It is a Han Chinese enterprise</p><p>in a Social Darwinian world. In this construction, China is awakening from</p><p>its slumber to resurrect the martial values that in the past had led its dynasties</p><p>to expand territorially across Asia. There is a particularly interesting parallel</p><p>here with the strand of Japanese exceptionalism (the Nihonjin ron discourse)</p><p>in the 1980s that emphasized climatic determinism: shinfūdoron. Indeed, the</p><p>various narratives all have some parallel with the various strands of Japanese</p><p>exceptionalist discourse. Perhaps all ‘emerging powers’ are faced with similar</p><p>dilemmas in establishing a strategic rationale for their foreign policies? (for</p><p>example Nau and Ollapally, 2012).</p><p>The message from the realpolitik posture for China’s leaders is that every</p><p>event in China’s ‘neighbourhood’ involving other actors is a potential</p><p>challenge to China’s status and thus must be met with an immediate</p><p>response. As a result, and among other things, ‘Ultimately no room is left</p><p>for compromise in the contest with Japan, because control of the East China</p><p>Sea is not just about energy reserves; it is about the bigger question of who</p><p>controls Taiwan, access to the Pacific and ultimately to the world’ (Hughes,</p><p>2011: 620). The syncretism with foreign influences here is obvious, yet it</p><p>now serves to justify totally Sino- centric ends.</p><p>Finally, by comparison significantly more anodyne, are those attempts</p><p>mentioned earlier at configuring a political science conception of</p><p>international relations with Chinese characteristics (Qin, 2011a; Kim, 2016).</p><p>Many studies are of this genre. As argued previously, much of what goes for</p><p>IR theory was invented in the United States. Sinicizing such an approach</p><p>takes several forms. One involves ‘highlighting Chinese traditions as a partial</p><p>explanation of Chinese diplomatic conduct’ (Ming, 2012: 105). In this way</p><p>allusions to ‘harmony’ and analogies to ancient dynastic wars take on deeper</p><p>meaning as representing something fundamentally Chinese rather than as</p><p>noble and arguably universal sentiments or historically contingent events of</p><p>distant memory. Implicit here still is a potential celebration of an essential</p><p>Chinese difference that remains unrelated to much actual Chinese history.</p><p>Rather more profoundly, however, the other narrative involves reorienting</p><p>the entire field (inside and beyond China) around concepts drawn from the</p><p>34</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>ancient philosopher Xunzi (and others), the benevolent nature of Chinese</p><p>power, and a ‘normative hierarchical order’. Reading across a number of</p><p>writers, particularly Qin Yaqing (2011b), Yan Xuetong (2011) and Wang</p><p>Yiwei (2007), Allen Carlson (2011: 101) sees evidence for ‘the development</p><p>of a new vision of world order which supplements, if not replaces, Westphalia</p><p>with newly resurrected, yet historically grounded, “Chinese” concepts of</p><p>how international politics might be reorganized’. Much of this parallels the</p><p>Orientalist narrative (second on the list) but using its explicit reference to</p><p>Chinese history to engage with more universalist theoretical approaches</p><p>rather than remaining a world apart, so to speak. For example, a rising China</p><p>needs followers not just supplicants as in the hegemonic stability theory</p><p>beloved of American exceptionalists.</p><p>Increasingly, however, these accounts appear more ‘realist’ in their emphasis</p><p>on China versus the rest than oriented to a ‘rationalist’ view of relative gains</p><p>among fellow states (Lynch, 2009). Moreover, and ironically, the reference</p><p>point is Westphalia even as Chinese history is mined for concepts and crucial</p><p>events to argue against; it is suggestive again of the degree to which this new</p><p>narrative is of mixed and not simply Chinese origin. Yan, for example, writes</p><p>of a ‘moral realism’ to convey this hybridity (for example Larson, 2020).</p><p>Of course, this is by no means a new development. Chinese intellectuals</p><p>and politicians have wrestled with Western influences, not least the now</p><p>increasingly forgotten borrowing from Marxism, for centuries (Callahan,</p><p>2015). Mining history, it seems, is as much about what is forgotten as about</p><p>what is remembered.</p><p>The politics of the IR narratives</p><p>To what extent can these narratives be seen as potentially leading to different</p><p>possible foreign policy positions significant beyond China’s borders? In the</p><p>first place, the possibility for</p><p>jockeying among a range of positions inspired</p><p>by different narratives has a contemporary historical basis. China’s renewed</p><p>opening to the world since the late 1970s represents a ‘time- space crisis’</p><p>in the sense that China can no longer be set in an eternally present and</p><p>geographically contained world such as that of the Cold War but must be</p><p>increasingly externally oriented and dynamic, drawing ideas from abroad but</p><p>also from what had been ‘lost’ with the official disavowal of the past China</p><p>from before the 1949 Revolution. This introduces a fundamental instability</p><p>into the making of Chinese foreign policy simply because the geographical</p><p>and historical limits of ‘China’ are undergoing a fundamental redefinition</p><p>(see Chapter 10 on China’s spatio- temporal holographic transition). This</p><p>helps to understand why perhaps so much contemporary debate in China</p><p>involves recourse to pre- revolutionary historical sources and analogies even</p><p>as they must be adapted to a different world- geographical milieu than those</p><p>PUTTING CHINA IN THE WORLD</p><p>35</p><p>historical ones from which they derive. China’s new prominence demands</p><p>looking back to when it had a perhaps similar destiny.</p><p>As yet, however, recognition of the fact that China is ensnared to a startling</p><p>extent, for example, in the network- based logic of globalization (for example</p><p>Pan, 2009) has had only limited effects on most of the IR visions so far in</p><p>question (for example Hameiri and Jones, 2016). This may change now that</p><p>President Xi senses a role for China as a sponsor for the US- led globalization</p><p>from which the United States itself has been in retreat, and not just with the</p><p>ascendance of Donald Trump. But contemporary theorizing remains largely</p><p>captive to territorialized images of global politics with either a world of states</p><p>or great swathes of the globe presumably always under some Great Power</p><p>or other’s sway. This focus has twin sources, not dissimilar to elsewhere but</p><p>with Chinese characteristics. One is the centrality of bureaucratic politics</p><p>with the jockeying for influence in higher circles between ministries and</p><p>political factions (Zhang, 2016). The other is the emphasis on centralized</p><p>diplomacy and the presentation of a Chinese ‘face’ to the world (Ho, 2016).</p><p>These certainly encourage a degree of pragmatism in the approach to strategic</p><p>policy (for example Stenslie, 2014).</p><p>It is also important to emphasize that although the Chinese government</p><p>remains authoritarian, policy making is still relatively open to a variety of</p><p>influences, including those of intellectuals, military officers, journalists and</p><p>others. The literature on Chinese politics sometimes refers to such people</p><p>as ‘policy entrepreneurs’, suggesting that they compete with one another</p><p>for the ear of political leaders and public opinion (for example Lieberthal</p><p>and Oksenberg, 1988; Jakobson and Manuel, 2016). This ‘fragmented</p><p>authoritarianism’ offers a useful heuristic for considering the wide range</p><p>of IR narratives that have emerged into prominence in recent years. The</p><p>Chinese party state is no longer, if it ever was, best thought of as a singularly</p><p>monolithic entity. The 2020– 21 COVID- 19 pandemic, widely interpreted</p><p>in the United States and Europe as not only the result of the culinary</p><p>peculiarity of China as its point of origin, but as also showing how simply</p><p>authoritarian the regime is in its capacity to manage untoward events, was in</p><p>fact bureaucratically bungled at the outset and then relied on public health</p><p>practices imported from the broader world to bring the pandemic under</p><p>control (Baldwin, 2021). A clearer example of the moving between worlds</p><p>to which I have been alluding could hardly be found.</p><p>Not only do not- so- distant fissures within the party elite over promotions</p><p>to top- tier leadership positions reveal distinctive ideological and personalized</p><p>factions, different factions are clearly recruiting support from within the</p><p>ranks of the burgeoning intelligentsia to provide them with rationales and</p><p>justifications for their policy positions. This said, it is important not to</p><p>overstate the degree to which opinions can be freely expressed outside fairly</p><p>narrow and officially prescribed limits. China may be a post- totalitarian</p><p>36</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>society but it is hardly an open one. The elevation of the princeling Xi</p><p>Jinping to head the party and the state, only the second leader of post- 1949</p><p>China chosen by his peers (Mao Zedong was the other), seems to represent</p><p>the beginning of a clampdown (McGregor, 2019). The decision in 2018 to</p><p>abolish term limits for this president suggests an increasingly personalized</p><p>centralized rule. But as Roderick MacFarquhar (2015: 6) remarks with</p><p>respect to Xi’s lack of an appealing if incoherent ideology such as Mao</p><p>Zedong Thought to guide him, ‘Without a substantive positive ideology</p><p>to grip the Chinese people, Xi has been forced to go negative, listing alien</p><p>doctrines to be extirpated’ with only his anti- corruption campaign to possibly</p><p>transform the party he leads and to prevent the collapse of single- party</p><p>rule. A mélange of Marxist- Leninist slogans, state capitalism and Confucian</p><p>adages, Xi Thought seems unlikely in itself to provide a coherent guide to</p><p>Chinese foreign policy. To the extent that it does one can see a certain</p><p>rendering of the sort of view expressed by Zhao Tingyang (2005) about</p><p>a ‘balanced’ approach to China’s foreign relations, drawing explicitly on</p><p>examples from Chinese imperial history even as China still remains officially</p><p>attached to the Principles of Peaceful Coexistence premised on a classical or</p><p>Westphalian view of territorial sovereignty (see Chapter 8). Implicit in it is</p><p>also the strategic vision of a figure such as Yan Xuetong (for example 2014).</p><p>Interestingly, both Zhao and Yan frequently write op- ed articles in leading</p><p>Chinese and foreign newspapers and magazines (for example Yan, 2018;</p><p>Zhao, 2018). As a result, and at least for the near future, as the Chinese</p><p>proverb says: ‘The gun shoots the bird with its head up’ (qiang da chutou niao)</p><p>(quoted in Esarey and Qiang, 2008: 755– 6). In other words, there would</p><p>seem to be strict limits to political- intellectual pluralism. Events in the wider</p><p>world, however, may well mandate significant shifts in the balance of power</p><p>between the various narrative streams in the years to come.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>In brief compass, I have tried to outline and tie together three general</p><p>themes. The first is the importance of considering the geographies of</p><p>knowledge about IR theory rather than simply accepting its ‘self- evident’</p><p>universality. Its very familiarity then informs how we look at the world. Yet</p><p>it is the result of a very specific contextual rather than universal historical</p><p>experience. The second is how China represents a clear challenge to the</p><p>conventional wisdom in IR theory but in a way that opens up the possibility</p><p>of thinking about theory in different terms from those in which we usually</p><p>think: contextual theorizing based on understanding the contingencies</p><p>between global pressures and local/ national agency. The third theme brings</p><p>these two together by examining recent efforts within China at articulating</p><p>that country’s relationship to the wider world (putting China in the world)</p><p>PUTTING CHINA IN THE WORLD</p><p>37</p><p>and how this focus can help us understand international relations in a more</p><p>contextualized manner, paying close attention to the intersection between</p><p>Sino- centric elements on the one hand and borrowed elements and</p><p>influences on the other. 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(2009) ‘The Influence of Think Tanks in the Chinese Policy</p><p>Process’, Asian Survey, 49(2): 333– 57.</p><p>42</p><p>2</p><p>Heart and Soul for World</p><p>Politics: Advaita Monism and Daoist</p><p>Trialectics in International Relations</p><p>L.H.M. Ling</p><p>Introduction</p><p>Let me begin with an anecdote. Here is a review from the New York Times</p><p>on Prakash Jha’s 2010 film, Raajneeti (Politics): ‘Mr. Jha has said he based the</p><p>dynastic family at the film’s heart on characters from the epic “Mahabharata”,</p><p>and there are also parallels to the Gandhi clan (generation Sonia). But Mr.</p><p>Jha’s real touchstone seems to be “The Godfather” ’ (Saltz, 2010). The</p><p>reviewer just did not get it. Because she knew nothing of the Mahabharata</p><p>(c. 900 BCE), all she could see were Jha’s occasional, filmic gestures to</p><p>Francis Ford Coppola’s series on mafia politics in 20th- century America.</p><p>She completely missed the Mahabharata’s key teaching: that is, power comes</p><p>to naught without a cosmic sense of morality behind it. ‘Raajneeti’ for her</p><p>thus turned into a cheesy Bollywood derivative of a great Hollywood classic.</p><p>Not simply bad or misled, this review reflects a history of ‘epistemic</p><p>violence’ (Spivak, 1988) perpetrated on the world, amounting to an</p><p>‘epistemicide’ (Santos, 2016). Five centuries of colonialism- imperialism have</p><p>killed knowledge not only in the global South, but also, I add, the global</p><p>North. The field of International Relations (IR) sets one example. Like the</p><p>New York Times review, IR suffers from three epistemic blinkers: (1) it fails</p><p>to access how millions outside of Westphalia World understand power and</p><p>politics; (2) it cannot benefit from ancient insights, whether these come from</p><p>the Mahabharata or elsewhere; and (3) it remains ignorant of itself, especially</p><p>the field’s complicity with hegemony and arrogance from it (Ling, 2017).</p><p>Epistemic compassion can deliver us from such myopic violence. Like</p><p>learning a new language, epistemic compassion opens worlds by crossing</p><p>HEART AND SOUL FOR WORLD POLITICS</p><p>43</p><p>boundaries previously thought immutable. More than seeing anew, epistemic</p><p>compassion helps us to feel anew. Utilitarians cross epistemic borders also but</p><p>for ‘use’ only and not to reflect. Consequently, utilitarians resist any notion</p><p>of transformation due to new knowledge whereas epistemic compassion</p><p>begins with it as a premise. No longer trapped in the ‘tragedy’ of power</p><p>politics (Mearsheimer, 2001), we can appreciate, instead, the joy (Penttinen,</p><p>2013; Särmä 2014), beauty (Ling, 2014b) and potential of discovery that</p><p>our world- of- worlds can offer (Ling, 2014a). This includes Interbeing (tiep</p><p>hien in Vietnamese), an update by the contemporary monk- teacher Thich</p><p>Nhat Hanh (1998) of Buddhism’s ancient tenet of ‘co- dependent arising’</p><p>(pratītyasamutpāda in Sanskrit); it refers to a mutuality between Self and</p><p>Other such that ‘you are in me as I am in you’ (ni zhong you wo, wo zhong</p><p>you ni in Mandarin Chinese).</p><p>To get a sense of how- what- why, I draw on two pre- Westphalian</p><p>traditions: Advaita monism and Daoist trialectics. Here Advaita and Daoism</p><p>are treated as epistemological traditions – that is, a way of thinking –</p><p>rather than as historical products. If we were to historicize all concepts,</p><p>then Christianity and especially the Protestant Ethic, would have lost any</p><p>epistemological import long ago, and IR as a field would never have continued</p><p>the conceptual and methodological legacies left by racist- sexist theorists such</p><p>as Hobbes, Hegel, Kant, Weber and Locke, to name just a few. Philosophies of</p><p>peace and prosperity do not necessarily arise from actual conditions of peace</p><p>and prosperity; more typically, the former results from a lack of the latter.</p><p>Advaita and Daoism offer a means of and rationale for worldly</p><p>reconciliation. Not a religious conversion, epistemic compassion simply</p><p>requires learning from Others with an open mind and heart; consequently, it</p><p>produces a very different understanding of and relationship to world politics.</p><p>This chapter concludes with the implications of epistemic compassion for</p><p>a post- Westphalian, post- dichotomous IR.</p><p>A caveat. This chapter itself requires epistemic compassion. In it, we cross</p><p>multiple borders: epistemic, linguistic, religious, geographical. This task may</p><p>seem arduous at first but it promises a magical, transformative journey. The</p><p>alien Other, it turns out, expresses an intimate element of the Self – and</p><p>has always done so. Only its lack of recognition in the field, until now, will</p><p>appear strange. In this way, the reader will experience the exhilaration, not</p><p>just challenge, of epistemic compassion.</p><p>Let me begin with the current discourse on ‘China’s rise’ (Ling, 2013).</p><p>It exemplifies Westphalia’s blinkered approach. Not only does it pit China</p><p>against the West, but this discourse also marginalizes and alienates the rest</p><p>of the world, as if it did not matter. The latter becomes mere backdrop for</p><p>another Great Game, 21st century style.</p><p>Bombs thus hiss from a bright, noonday sky in rural Pakistan as much as</p><p>bullets shatter a serene autumn evening in Paris.</p><p>44</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>China’s rise: implications for IR</p><p>Today’s China still disturbs. It may no longer sponsor anti- Western revolution</p><p>at home or abroad, and has transformed, instead, into a bastion of neoliberal</p><p>capitalism for about 40 years. But the People’s Republic still unsettles the</p><p>West, mainly due to its integration, or lack thereof, into the ‘international</p><p>community’ (Economist, 2018). What exactly,</p><p>many worry, is or will be</p><p>China’s role in world politics? To Liberal Westphalians like Barry Buzan</p><p>(2010) and G. John Ikenberry (2011), a rising China could destabilize or</p><p>consolidate the status quo, depending on the willingness of leaders in Beijing</p><p>to cooperate with the Western- led, liberal world order – and how much the</p><p>West can insist on or entice such cooperation. To Chinese Westphalians such</p><p>as Yan Xuetong (2011), China will invariably alter the status quo regardless</p><p>of leadership inclinations. The country’s demographic and territorial size,</p><p>not to mention its historical import, will make a difference.</p><p>Another source of convergence comes from Classical Westphalians and</p><p>Chinese Constructivists. The former, like Henry Kissinger (2011), propose</p><p>that China and the West should just get together, as the Pope and the</p><p>kings of Europe did in the 16th century. They divided the world among</p><p>themselves, then ruled accordingly. Stability and order ensued, at least for</p><p>the principals involved. (That such comity initiated five centuries of violence</p><p>and brutality against those not privy to the bargain seems to have escaped</p><p>classical Westphalians – or they do not care.) Chinese Constructivists such as</p><p>Qin Yaqing (2010; 2011; 2016) and other members of the ‘Chinese School</p><p>of IR’ (Zhang and Chang, 2016) make a slightly different argument. Chinese</p><p>norms and values, they believe, will naturally interact with the world to</p><p>effect changes that remain, as yet, unanticipated. Together with the West,</p><p>Qin suggests, China will form a new global order.</p><p>Critique</p><p>Neither camp questions categories such as ‘China’, the ‘West’, the ‘inter- state</p><p>system’, or even the ‘Westphalian state’. All presume that states will remain</p><p>the central unit of IR analysis, functioning as self- enclosed, self- interested</p><p>units of power. Even Qin Yaqing imposes a statist- nationalist frame onto a</p><p>philosophical and normative tradition – yin/ yang dynamics – that had no</p><p>such intention or purpose in the first place. Indeed, unlike Confucians,</p><p>Daoists especially disdained any external sources of control such as the</p><p>state (Ames, 1998). Despite the systemic dynamics that Qin himself has</p><p>introduced, anything outside the China/ West matrix remains an afterthought</p><p>or a playground for the powerful. Yan Xuetong puts it more directly: so</p><p>far, only ‘small fry’ such as Vietnam and the Philippines have complained</p><p>about China’s moves in the South China Sea – meaning there is no ‘real’</p><p>HEART AND SOUL FOR WORLD POLITICS</p><p>45</p><p>opposition from a major power such as the United States, Europe or Russia</p><p>(Huang, 2016). So China has nothing to worry about. (He conveniently</p><p>omits China’s standoff with Japan in the East China Sea.)</p><p>Both camps also unite in their patriarchal proclivities (Ling, 2016c).</p><p>Whether it is Brotherly Love under Confucian tianxia (All under Heaven) or</p><p>a more perfect, machine- like Artificial Man in Hobbes’ Leviathan, the Chinese</p><p>School and their Westphalian counterparts partake in what is effectively a</p><p>gentleman’s club. Some, like the English school, may appear in top hat and</p><p>morning coat; others, like the Chinese school, may dress in changpao magua</p><p>(a traditional gown for men starting from China’s Republican period). But all</p><p>revel in a common, hypermasculine camaraderie: that is, they regale one another</p><p>with clever chatter or perhaps a zinger or two while being served, silently and</p><p>efficiently, by those whom they will never know or even acknowledge but</p><p>whose labour and resources make their ‘club’ possible in the first place. Not</p><p>surprisingly, these hypermasculine theorists discount anything smacking of the</p><p>non- masculine (for example postcolonial- feminism), non- heteronormative</p><p>(for example queer theory) and especially non- secular (for example ‘gods and</p><p>spirits’). Even postcolonial theorists tend to treat ‘gods and spirits’ as belief</p><p>only, rather than an integral element of ontology/ epistemology (Vasilaki,</p><p>2012). There is no room in the IR club for such ‘distractions’.</p><p>Herein lies the nub of self- delusion in Westphalian IR. History has shown,</p><p>time and again, that society’s so- called ‘servile’ and ‘inferior’ classes can make</p><p>new worlds despite generations of racism- sexism- imperialism entrenched</p><p>by hierarchy and privilege, colonialism and imperialism (Kataneksza</p><p>et al, 2018). As Andean activist Humberto Cholango declared to Pope</p><p>Benedict XVI in a letter in 2007, ‘we [the Andean people] are still here’</p><p>(Cholango quoted in Cadena, 2010: 335). Despite centuries of control, if</p><p>not genocide, the people of the Andes – like other feminized, colonized</p><p>subjects throughout the globe – have survived, and they have done so by</p><p>‘learn[ing] how to merge our beliefs and symbols with the ones of the</p><p>invaders and oppressors’ (Cholango quoted in Cadena, 2010: 334). Such</p><p>is epistemic compassion.</p><p>I turn now to Advaita monism and Daoist trialectics for how- what- why.</p><p>Advaita monism and Daoist trialectics: connectedness</p><p>and compassion</p><p>Advaita monism</p><p>Most cite Shankara (c. 8th century BCE) for articulating Advaita. It</p><p>relates to but differs from two other branches of the subcontinent’s vedas</p><p>(‘knowledge’): dvaita (dualism) and vishishtadvaita (qualified monism or</p><p>holism). ‘The concept of Advaita (literally meaning non- dual or non-</p><p>secondness) pre- supposes a monist epistemology that … ties the perceiver</p><p>46</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>(subject) and the perceived (object) together with a globe marked with</p><p>“single hidden connectedness” or Brahman’ (Shahi and Ascione, 2015: 2).</p><p>From this basis, Shahi and Ascione construct an Advaitic- monist model</p><p>of world politics. It suggests an ‘ever- transient’ but ‘perpetually- connected’</p><p>global system (Shahi and Ascione, 2015: 15). Just as ‘theorist’ and ‘theory’</p><p>fuse into an ultimate reality encompassed by Brahma, so, too, Advaitic-</p><p>monist IR would highlight ‘an unbreakable and irreversible ‘micro– macro</p><p>linkage’ or ontological nexus between diverse individuals, nation states and</p><p>the world’ (Shahi and Ascione, 2015: 15). They conclude: ‘The intellectual</p><p>realization of “connectedness” can make a powerful case for reinterpreting</p><p>diversities in political identities, thereby creating new ethical space for</p><p>condemning divisive domestic, international and global politics’ (Shahi</p><p>and Ascione, 2015: 15). I applaud this articulation of an Advaitic- monist</p><p>IR. It brings us closer to a world politics beyond Westphalia. Dichotomies</p><p>such as ‘China’ vs the ‘West’ begin to dissolve. Advaita monism’s dynamic,</p><p>perpetual connectedness alerts us to the ties that bind even when conflicts</p><p>and contradictions seem to pull us apart. Accordingly, our analysis of</p><p>China and the West cannot abide by IR conventions like the three ‘levels</p><p>of analysis’ (Waltz, 1954) or ‘structure vs units’ (Waltz, 1979). We need to</p><p>consider how all the ‘constituents of the globe’ (Shahi and Ascione, 2015: 15)</p><p>interrelate and interact. Even if national governments may quarrel, various</p><p>actors (‘individuals … classes, communities, cultures, peoples’) as well as the</p><p>context in which they operate (‘ecology and the world’) still have a mediating</p><p>impact, ‘reveal[ing] the hidden connectedness across diversities’ (Shahi and</p><p>Ascione, 2015: 15). Yet this intellectual and heuristic agenda, as Shahi and</p><p>Ascione (2015: 15) underscore, remains an ‘unrealized intellectual quest’.</p><p>It compels further exploration. I could not agree more.</p><p>Nonetheless, I raise a cautionary note. We need to resist falling into</p><p>the Cartesian trap of highlighting Advaita monism in contradistinction to</p><p>its two partners in philosophy: dvaita dualism and vishishtadvaita holism.</p><p>Analytically, each branch of thought could not be without the others. Note,</p><p>for example, how people live their lives, demonstrating the fluidity between</p><p>these categories fixed by Western social science. I focus on three cases, in</p><p>particular: darsana, dharma and ayurveda.</p><p>Darsana means a perspective, viewpoint or a way of seeing eternal and</p><p>philosophical truths; accordingly, it refers to a body, system or school of</p><p>philosophy. Six such darsanas pertain: namely sāṅkhya, yoga, nyāya, vaiśeṣika,</p><p>mīmāṃsā and vedānta. Advaita philosophy itself, then, is a particular form</p><p>of darsana (Miles, 2015). Dharma refers to righteousness, merit, religious</p><p>duty, religion, law, a goal of life (purushartha). Literally, it means ‘what holds</p><p>together’. Dharma thus constitutes the basis of all order, whether social or</p><p>moral. All the different schools of philosophy engage with the essence of</p><p>dharma and the relevance or not of karmakaand or dharmic rituals (see Miles,</p><p>HEART AND SOUL FOR WORLD POLITICS</p><p>47</p><p>2015). And ayurveda is defined by the Charaka Samhita as ‘that which deals</p><p>with good, bad, happy, and unhappy life, its promoters and non- promoters,</p><p>measurement and nature’ (Van Loon, 2003: 13).</p><p>The first two, darsana and dharma, show how advaita- dvaita- vishishtadvaita</p><p>cross epistemic borders between the divine and the mundane; the last,</p><p>ayurveda, the body and the mind. All three link the individual with the</p><p>community, the environment with the cosmo- political. These underscore</p><p>humanity’s undeniable thirst for spirituality, not just ethics. Epistemic</p><p>compassion thus takes place.</p><p>Darsana</p><p>Worship of the goddess Durga induces darsana. An enactment of Advaita</p><p>monism, darsana facilitates a spiritual exchange between the deity and the</p><p>worshipper, her community and the cosmos. To begin with, Durga embodies</p><p>dvaita dualism by bearing multiple personas, guises and genders. These</p><p>underscore her totality, as encapsulated by vishishtadvaita holism. As consort</p><p>to Lord Shiva, Durga represents the deity- as- couple but, in her fiery mode,</p><p>she also presides as Chandi; elsewhere, she takes on the figure of a loving</p><p>mother. Anjan Ghosh (2000: 295) notes Durga’s magic:</p><p>[T] he very act of worshipping Durga elicits dialectical reflexivity: Darsana</p><p>or gazing upon the image of the deity has a special significance in</p><p>Hinduism, for it is not a passive gaze. Just as the devotée gazes upon</p><p>the image the deity also gazes upon the devotée and there occurs an</p><p>‘exchange of vision.’ As it is believed that the deity is in the image, this</p><p>exchange of vision enables the devotée to absorb the shakti (power)</p><p>that flows from the goddess’s unblinking gaze. In this way the people</p><p>in the village who come to view the image of the goddess are blessed</p><p>by her powers.</p><p>The Durga festival (puja) itself demonstrates the totality of advaita- dvaita-</p><p>vishishtadvaita. Originally from Calcutta’s Bengali Brahman caste, the puja has</p><p>now spread to other communities. ‘In multi- ethnic neighbourhoods (paras)’,</p><p>Ghosh (2000: 298) writes, ‘Muslims, Christians and dalits (untouchable) have</p><p>also participated in the organization of the puja … transform[ing] Calcutta</p><p>during the pujas into a heterotopic [outside- the- normal] space’.</p><p>Dharma</p><p>The Swadhyaya, a religious group from India, personify the social ideal of</p><p>dharma (‘devotional duty’). The Swadhyayis, Pankaj Jain (2009) observes,</p><p>enact their dharma by planting and nurturing ‘tree- temples’ even on land</p><p>48</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>condemned as barren. At Vruksh Mandir Temple in Gandhidam (a city in</p><p>the Gujarat state of India), for instance, 1,500 trees now thrive with a variety</p><p>of species, including medicinal herbs and vegetables (Times of India, 2002).</p><p>Yet the Swadhyayis disavow environmentalism or any such modern (that is,</p><p>instrumental) ideology. ‘Ecology is not our concern’, one respondent insists.</p><p>‘Environmental problems are due to industrialization and the solution lies</p><p>beyond Swadhyaya’s activities. Swadhyayis are not environmentalists!’ (Jain,</p><p>2009: 306). Rather, spiritual oneness motivates Swadhyayis. ‘I feed the</p><p>plants not to obey my father’, an iconic character in the Swadhyayi religious</p><p>pantheon states famously, ‘but I love and feed them [as] my own brothers’</p><p>(quoted in Jain, 2009: 310).</p><p>Like Durga worship, the Swadhyaya movement creates a space for</p><p>outside- the-normal social relations. Muslims and Hindus have planted</p><p>trees in one another’s burial/ cremation grounds. No greater sign of</p><p>respect and consideration could there be from one community to another.</p><p>And no greater indication is there for the mutual embeddedness of</p><p>advaita- dvaita- vishishtadvaita.</p><p>Admittedly, the dharmic tradition has contributed to the caste system in</p><p>South Asia but we cannot ignore the role of colonial powers in appropriating</p><p>and reifying Brahmanic texts to rationalize their own management of the</p><p>‘natives’ (Inden, 1986; Dirks, 2001; Doniger, 2009). There is a famous</p><p>story, for example, of Shankara bowing to a Chandala (low caste) in</p><p>Kashi and treating him like a guru. Similarly, Shankara acknowledges the</p><p>wisdom that women possess at various points. Only now are these texts</p><p>being decolonized.</p><p>Ayurveda</p><p>Non- duality- duality- holism also manifests in India’s medical tradition,</p><p>ayurveda. Initially practised in South Asia only, ayurveda has now spread</p><p>globally as the benefits of this mode of healing become more widely</p><p>recognized. Ayurveda comes from two classic texts: Charaka Samhita (hereafter</p><p>‘Charaka’, c. 3rd– 2nd century BCE) and Susruta Samhita (c. 3rd century</p><p>CE). Since the latter primarily concerns surgery, I focus on the former for</p><p>ayurveda’s main principles, norms and practices.</p><p>As with advaita- dvaita- vishishtadvaita, ayurveda originates from Brahma. From</p><p>the Void where all begins, a mutual interplay between the masculine (purusha)</p><p>and the feminine (prakrti) produces the world dynamically, constantly and</p><p>transformatively. Yet ayurveda remains grounded in the everyday. ‘Ayurvedic</p><p>texts relied upon images derived from the plant kingdom, with networks</p><p>of veins on a leaf, the rising of the sap, and milky exudations from resinous</p><p>plants, providing models for the body’ (Zimmerman quoted in Warrier,</p><p>2011: 82). Ayurveda links the environment’s ‘five elements’ (pancamahabhutas)</p><p>HEART AND SOUL FOR WORLD POLITICS</p><p>49</p><p>with one’s five physical senses: earth (smell), water (taste), fire (sight), air</p><p>(touch) and space (sound) (Van Loon, 2003: 21).</p><p>A healthy person, the Charaka proclaims, could inspire even the crops</p><p>to thrive with ‘great endowments’ (Van Loon, 2003: 15). Contrastingly,</p><p>transgressions against Nature/ Brahma, such as those cited later, signal illness</p><p>and disease in the individual as well as the general environment:</p><p>[C] hurning the tops of mountains, churning of trees, producing high</p><p>tides in oceans, overflowing of the lakes, counter- current in rivers,</p><p>earthquake, moving of clouds with sounds, showering of dew, thunder,</p><p>dust, sand, fish, frog, snake, alkali, blood, stone and thunderstorm;</p><p>derangement of six seasons, non- compactness of crops, complications in</p><p>creatures, replacing the positive factors with negative ones, and release</p><p>of clouds, sun, fire and wind which bring about the end of four ages.</p><p>(quoted in Van Loon, 2003: 41)</p><p>Ayurveda prescribes yoga and a good diet for a healthy life. So too does it</p><p>advise an enlightened spirit. Because life emanates from an essential vitality,</p><p>energy or force known as prana or jiva, illness (including unhappiness)</p><p>ensues when an imbalance disrupts or blocks this life force. Healing begins</p><p>when the prana/ jiva is stimulated and released so it could resume flowing.</p><p>Good health requires balancing the spiritual with the physical, knowledge</p><p>with enlightenment, so the whole body or system could operate naturally</p><p>and organically.</p><p>For instance, ayurveda aligns the seven ‘energy vortices’ known as chakras.</p><p>These integrate a person’s health with enlightenment. The chakras register</p><p>from the base of the spine to the crown of the head; each connects a part</p><p>of the body to a specific colour, symbol, element, sense and purpose</p><p>(Rama, 1998). The fourth or heart chakra acts as the linchpin: it connects</p><p>the</p><p>bottom three chakras, mostly concerned with one’s physical well- being</p><p>(safety, sexuality nourishment), with the top three chakras, which centre on</p><p>spiritual realization (creativity, intuition, cosmic consciousness). Illness breaks</p><p>out when a lower chakra (for example need for security) conflicts with or</p><p>blocks a higher one (for example achieving cosmic consciousness), leading</p><p>to a systemic imbalance.</p><p>Elsewhere, I show the links between ayurveda and traditional Chinese</p><p>medicine, zhongyi (Ling, 2016a). Each has contributed crucially to the other</p><p>over millennia (Tan and Geng, 2005; Salguero, 2014; Tan, 2015). Indeed,</p><p>Buddhist monasteries served as clinics of advanced medicine in the ancient</p><p>world. Rather than repeat that discussion here, I highlight the epistemology</p><p>common to both ayurveda and zhongyi: trialectical healing. The subcontinent</p><p>knows this tradition through sāṅkhya, among others; in East and Southeast</p><p>Asia, yin and yang (Ling, 2014). Both help Zen Buddhism reach a trialectic</p><p>50</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>of non- duality with duality. Like health, enlightenment requires a trialectical-</p><p>third beyond the physical and the individual: that is, an ‘awakened wisdom</p><p>and selfless compassion’ (Hori, 2003: 6).</p><p>Now, let me introduce trialectics in yin/ yang terms. In Chinese, the term</p><p>for ‘dialectics’ and ‘trialectics’ is the same: bian (to debate) zheng (evidence)</p><p>fa (law or rule). Contrary to the English term ‘dialectics’, which indicates</p><p>a party of two, the Chinese term does not indicate how many parties are</p><p>involved. It signals, instead, the process of change and continuity, debate</p><p>and discourse with evidence.</p><p>Daoist trialectics</p><p>The Daodejing (Classic of the Way) posits two ontologically equal opposites –</p><p>yin (the female principle, coloured in black) and yang (the male principle,</p><p>coloured in white). Each faces the other with internal entwinements in</p><p>tow: that is, yin- within- yang, yang- within- yin. If we replace the abstractions</p><p>of yin and yang with their substantive principles, femaleness and maleness</p><p>respectively, then their internal entwinements refer to the female- within-</p><p>male and the male- within- female. In this sense, yin/ yang theory resonates</p><p>with contemporary queer theory. Graphically, an S- like border differentiates</p><p>the white sphere- yin from the black- yang. Their internal entwinements</p><p>show up as a white dot in the black sphere, and a black dot in the white.</p><p>Daoist yin/ yang relations thus encompass simultaneous interaction between</p><p>the two principles and their internal entwinements (in contrast, Hegel’s</p><p>dialectic never recognized the master in the slave nor the slave in the</p><p>master. His ‘sublation’, moreover, follows after their interaction rather than</p><p>in simultaneous action with it. Brincat and Ling, 2014). Together, these</p><p>account for continuity and change, connections and conflicts, masculinity</p><p>and femininity, duality and non- duality. The Book of Changes (Yijing, c. 12</p><p>BCE) refers to this concept as tongbian or ‘continuity through change’. Tong</p><p>indicates passing through doors that open and shut; bian, the changes that</p><p>accrue during this journey. ‘It is between the door’s opening and being</p><p>shut, or between a correlated pairing, that continuity through change takes</p><p>place. … [I] n turn, interaction itself is an embodiment of correlativity and</p><p>continuity’ (Tian, 2005: 23). Systemic health, by extension, requires balance</p><p>among contending, opposing forces through their mutual embeddedness.</p><p>Water exemplifies the dao. ‘The highest efficacy’, the Daodejing quotes</p><p>Laozi (or ‘Old Master’, the mythical founder of Daoism), ‘is like water’ (Ames</p><p>and Hall, 2003: 87). Endowed with inherently transformative capabilities,</p><p>water can turn from hot to cold, soft to hard, or calm to stormy at a moment’s</p><p>notice. Water also swishes in a multi- layered, multidimensional milieu.</p><p>Flowing from centres to margins, depths to surfaces, and back again,</p><p>water dwells in places ‘loathed by the crowd’ as well as loved by it (Ames</p><p>HEART AND SOUL FOR WORLD POLITICS</p><p>51</p><p>and Hall, 2003: 87). Despite being a porous, malleable substance, water</p><p>can break rocks. ‘The meekest in the world/ Penetrates the strongest in the</p><p>world’ (Laozi quoted in Thompson, 1998: 17). The dao, accordingly, never</p><p>discriminates between the yin- female principle and the yang- male principle.</p><p>Each has its time, place and circumstance.</p><p>Water thus reminds the powerful and the weak alike not to presume</p><p>too much. Power seems eternal – until it is washed away, flooded by the</p><p>undeniable life force that is water. It evidences, in short, the futility of control.</p><p>For this reason, Daoism teaches that the highest ideal of social action for the</p><p>individual and the collective is wuwei or non- coercive action. Continuing</p><p>with the metaphor of water breaking rocks, Laozi notes its implications:</p><p>As nothingness [water] enters into that- which- has- no- opening, Hence,</p><p>I am aware of the value of non- action [wuwei]</p><p>And of the value of teaching with no- words.</p><p>As for the value of non- action [non- coercion],</p><p>Nothing in the world can match it. (Laozi quoted in Thompson,</p><p>1998: 17)</p><p>Confucians and Legalists have also drawn on the Daoist concept of wuwei.</p><p>Consequently, the tradition reflects an amalgamation of discourses and</p><p>debates, policies and strategies. The Huainanzi (139 BCE) provides an</p><p>exemplary document in this case (see Ames, 1983).</p><p>Non- duality with duality</p><p>One example comes from Zen Buddhism’s non- duality with duality. Non-</p><p>duality refers to a condition whereby ‘subject and object are not opposed to</p><p>each other, the one excluding the other’ (Hori, 2003: 15). Still, non- duality</p><p>cannot eliminate duality; otherwise, non- duality itself would impose another</p><p>kind of duality. Japanese Zen master Eihei Dōgen (1200– 53) identifies a</p><p>trialectic of thinking to facilitate non- duality with duality: thinking (shiryō),</p><p>not- thinking (fushiryō) and non- thinking (hishiryō). Transitioning from one</p><p>to the other helps the mind journey from the conventional to the ineffable.</p><p>Dōgen cites this example: ‘An ancient Buddha said: “Mountains mountain,</p><p>waters water.” These words don’t say that “mountains” are mountains,</p><p>they say that mountains mountain. This being the case, we should study</p><p>“mountains.” When we investigate mountains in this way, mountains</p><p>mountain’ (Dōgen quoted in Tanaka, 2013: 326). In other words, Dōgen</p><p>exhorts us to remove the self when considering others, including that which</p><p>may seem inanimate. When we think of mountains as ‘mountains’ only,</p><p>then we are prioritizing ourselves – that is, our preconceived notion of a</p><p>mountain – in our understanding of it. To not think about the mountain, in</p><p>52</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>turn, would erase something that obviously exists. Both cases would violate</p><p>the mountain. But when we perceive that a mountain mountains, we begin</p><p>to relate to it on its own terms and in its own context. We are entering the</p><p>realm of non- thinking. We begin to experience the mountain. In this way,</p><p>we emancipate ourselves from preconceptions or other normalized ways of</p><p>thinking. We begin to realize the world as it seeks/ needs to be realized and</p><p>our (minuscule) role in it.</p><p>Buddhism’s five- rank protocol specifies a method for integrating non-</p><p>duality with duality. The first two ranks – (1) recognizing ‘the relative</p><p>within the absolute’ and (2) ‘the absolute within the relative’ – caution, in</p><p>effect, that appearances can be deceiving. Things may seem different on</p><p>the surface (for example yin vs yang) but they share a common condition or</p><p>essence underneath (for example yin- within- yang, yang- within- yin). Even</p><p>so, the commonality between different things does not negate each entity’s</p><p>unique qualities (for example, yin is still the female principle; yang, the</p><p>male). From these two ranks, the third one – (3) ‘coming from within the</p><p>absolute’ – becomes</p><p>and a Fellow of the British Academy.</p><p>John is the editor for the book series, New Horizons in Human Geography</p><p>(Edward Elgar).</p><p>Raoul Bunskoek is Research Associate and Lecturer in the Department of</p><p>Sociology, Chair for Sociology of Africa, University of Bayreuth (Germany).</p><p>Raoul is a co- author of the book China and International Theory: The Balance</p><p>of Relationships (with Shih et al, 2019).</p><p>Barry Buzan is Senior Fellow at LSE IDEAS, Emeritus Professor in the</p><p>Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics</p><p>and Political Science (UK), Honorary Professor at Jilin University (China)</p><p>and Copenhagen University (Denmark), and a Fellow of the British Academy.</p><p>Yih- Jye Hwang (PhD, Aberystwyth University) is Universitair Docent of</p><p>International Relations at Leiden University (the Netherlands). His research</p><p>focuses on culture and identity politics in East Asia, East Asian approaches</p><p>to human security, China’s strategic and just war thinking, post- Western</p><p>IR, post- structuralism, and theories of nationalism.</p><p>Emilian Kavalski is the inaugural NAWA Chair Professor in the Complex</p><p>Systems Lab, Centre for International Studies and Development, Jagiellonian</p><p>University, Krakow (Poland) and series editor for Routledge’s Rethinking</p><p>Asia and International Relations series.</p><p>L.H.M. Ling (1955– 2018) was Professor of International Affairs at The</p><p>New School in New York (USA) and co- editor of the book series, Global</p><p>Dialogues: Developing Non- Eurocentric International Relations and International</p><p>Political Economy (Rowman & Littlefield).</p><p>Christopher A. McNally is Professor of Political Economy at Chaminade</p><p>University of Honolulu (USA). His research focuses on comparative</p><p>x</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>capitalisms, especially the logic of Sino-capitalism and its implications</p><p>for the global order. He has edited four volumes and authored numerous</p><p>peer- reviewed research articles, including in World Politics and The Review</p><p>of International Political Economy.</p><p>Astrid H.M. Nordin is the Lau Chair Professor of Chinese International</p><p>Relations at King’s College London (UK). She is author of China’s</p><p>International Relations and Harmonious World (Routledge, 2016) and co- editor,</p><p>with Graham M. Smith, of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs special</p><p>issue ‘Towards Global Relational Theorising’.</p><p>Chengxin Pan is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of</p><p>Macau (China) and Adjunct Associate Professor at University of Technology</p><p>Sydney (Australia). He is a co- editor of the series Global Political Sociology</p><p>(Palgrave Macmillan). His latest publications have appeared in European</p><p>Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, Critical Studies</p><p>on Security and Millennium: Journal of International Studies.</p><p>Chih- yu Shih is Professor of Political Science at the National Taiwan</p><p>University (Taiwan) and was until recently the editor of the journal</p><p>Asian Ethnicity.</p><p>Graham M. Smith is Associate Professor in Political Theory at the</p><p>University of Leeds (UK). He has published on the topic of friendship in</p><p>Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, Political Studies</p><p>Review and International Politics. He is the author of Friendship and the Political</p><p>(Imprint Academic, 2011).</p><p>Hung- jen Wang is Associate Professor in the Department of Political</p><p>Science, National Cheng Kung University (Taiwan). His research interests</p><p>include post- Western IR theory, Chinese foreign policy, and Sino–</p><p>US relations.</p><p>Wang Jisi is Professor in the School of International Studies and President</p><p>of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Peking University</p><p>(China). He is also an honorary president of the Chinese Association</p><p>for American Studies. He was a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory</p><p>Committee of China’s Foreign Ministry from 2008 to 2016.</p><p>xi</p><p>Acknowledgements</p><p>The idea of this book was first conceived out of the enjoyable collaboration</p><p>between the two editors on a project ‘Theorizing China’s Rise in and</p><p>Beyond International Relations’. The project includes an international</p><p>workshop held at Deakin University in 2016, a subsequent special issue</p><p>published in International Relations of the Asia- Pacific (Volume 18, No.</p><p>3, 2018), and now this edited volume. Throughout this stimulating</p><p>collaborative journey, we have accumulated enormous debts to many</p><p>people and institutions.</p><p>First and foremost, we are grateful for the generous support of a Conference</p><p>and Seminar Grant (Grant ID: CS003- P- 15) from the Chiang Ching- kuo</p><p>Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. The support from the</p><p>Foundation and its President, Professor Yun- han Chu, was instrumental</p><p>to the successful holding of the workshop, which laid the foundation for</p><p>this book.</p><p>We also thank Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation</p><p>(ADI) and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University,</p><p>and the (now defunct) Institute for Social Justice at the Australian Catholic</p><p>University for their support for the workshop. The project was strongly</p><p>supported by a number of colleagues at Deakin University, particularly Gary</p><p>Smith (then Deputy Vice- Chancellor, Deakin University), Matthew Clarke</p><p>(then Head of School of Humanities and Social Sciences), Fethi Mansouri</p><p>(Director of ADI), Brenda Cherednichenko (then Executive Dean of Faculty</p><p>of Arts and Education), Shahram Akbarzadeh (Deputy Director of ADI)</p><p>and Cayla Edwards (then ADI).</p><p>For their help, constructive feedback, and commitment to this project,</p><p>and particularly this edited volume, we thank Shaun Breslin, Yongjin Zhang,</p><p>Stephen Wenham, Shogo Suzuki, Peter Kristensen, Lorna Blackmore,</p><p>Caroline Astley, the anonymous reviewers and, above all, our contributors.</p><p>Sadly one of our contributors, Lily Ling, untimely passed away in October</p><p>2018. A tireless pioneer in the field of critical studies of international</p><p>relations, Lily would have been really pleased to see the publication of this</p><p>collection. She will be sorely missed.</p><p>xii</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>We thank Oxford University Press for granting permissions to reproduce</p><p>the articles from the Special Issue of International Relations of the Asia- Pacific</p><p>(Volume 18, Issue 3, 2018). Last but not least, each editor thanks their family</p><p>for their love, support and understanding, without which the completion</p><p>of the book would not have been possible, especially given the challenging</p><p>circumstances during the COVID- 19 pandemic.</p><p>newgenprepdf</p><p>1</p><p>Introduction: The Rise of China</p><p>and Its Challenges to International</p><p>Relations Theory</p><p>Chengxin Pan and Emilian Kavalski</p><p>Introduction</p><p>The development of International Relations (IR) theory is closely bound</p><p>up with significant events and tectonic shifts in world politics (Acharya and</p><p>Buzan, 2017: 12). Such watershed moments often prompt IR scholars to</p><p>recalibrate their frameworks of analysis to better make sense of a changing</p><p>world. In the 1930s, modern realism emerged ‘as a reaction to the breakdown</p><p>of the post- World War I international order’ (Wohlforth, 1994/ 95: 91). In</p><p>the last decade of the 20th century, the abrupt end of the Cold War saw</p><p>both a fall in realism’s fortune, and the opening of new space for theories</p><p>from a broadly defined post- positivist persuasion (Lapid, 1989; Smith, Booth</p><p>and Zalewski, 1996). Emerging out of the ensuing Third Debate between</p><p>positivist and post- positivist theories (or between what Robert Keohane calls</p><p>‘rationalist’ and ‘reflectivist’ approaches, see Keohane, 1988), constructivism</p><p>has since become a new fixture in the IR theory landscape (Guzzini, 2000).</p><p>Thus, ‘although indirect, the connection between events and theory was</p><p>undeniable’ (Wohlforth, 1994/ 95: 91).</p><p>Interestingly, such a supposedly undeniable link is yet to clearly emerge in</p><p>the case of an ongoing major ‘event’ in contemporary international relations,</p><p>namely,</p><p>possible. Here, we begin to see and treat the two parts,</p><p>relative (for example yin) and absolute (for example yang), as one (for example</p><p>the dao). From this basis, compassion arises and enlightenment becomes a</p><p>possibility. A fourth rank – (4) ‘arriving at mutual integration’ – urges action</p><p>based on this insight. ‘At this stage, the absolute and relative are integrated,</p><p>but they’re still two things’ (Loori, 2009: xxvii). For this reason, we need a</p><p>fifth rank – (5) ‘unity attained’ – to affirm ‘There is no more duality. [The</p><p>entity] is one thing – neither absolute nor relative, up nor down, profane nor</p><p>holy, good nor bad, male nor female’ (Loori, 2009: xxvii). From thinking</p><p>to not- thinking, we reach Dōgen’s non- thinking or wuwei.</p><p>So with Advaitic- Daoist IR. Integrated into a post- Westphalian, post-</p><p>dichotomous IR, it urges engagement with hegemonic conventions such</p><p>as ‘China’ vs the ‘West’ with the ‘ever- transient’ yet ‘perpetually connected’</p><p>nature of our world- of- worlds. Otherwise, where would systemic</p><p>transformation come from? Buddhism’s five- rank protocol helps us excavate</p><p>‘the hidden connectedness across diversities’ (Shahi and Ascione, 2015: 15).</p><p>We witness, accordingly, the making of our world- of- worlds by different</p><p>actors and communities in their local and global contexts. More pointedly,</p><p>an Advaitic- Daoist IR adds one more element: spirituality.</p><p>A critical reader could ask: what difference does it make? How does</p><p>spirituality affect relations between China and the world? Let us see below.</p><p>Advaitic- Daoist IR: a pool of multiple worlds</p><p>With water as metaphor, world politics becomes a pool of fluid, multiple</p><p>worlds. Also drawing on yin/ yang theory, Qin Yaqing (2010; 2011; 2016)</p><p>characterizes world politics as a ‘lake’. I prefer the term ‘pool’ since it</p><p>HEART AND SOUL FOR WORLD POLITICS</p><p>53</p><p>does not eternalize world politics as part of a natural ecosystem; rather, it</p><p>includes both natural and artificial constructs. Each world represents a node</p><p>of epistemes that ripples outward, melting at the edges with other concentric</p><p>spills of epistemes. These circulate communal modes of thinking and doing,</p><p>being and relating that have evolved over millennia. Like water, multiple</p><p>worlds must flow freely to stay vibrant; in IR terms, this means interacting</p><p>with Difference and hybridizing with Others. Today global media serve as</p><p>a powerful source of circulation for multiple worlds, though they merely</p><p>formalize what multiple worlds already do: that is, they forge a common</p><p>world through interactions with one another.</p><p>Nonetheless, the nodes run deep: that is, multiple worlds do not lose their</p><p>distinctive characteristics. These reflect and sustain legacies of history and</p><p>tradition, sentiment and practice transmitted through language, memory,</p><p>storytelling, and rituals. Indeed, in every ancient civilization, myth accounts</p><p>for the origin of these nodes. Like raindrops from Heaven, they simply</p><p>descend upon the pool one day. At the same time, these nodes do not stay</p><p>the same forever. Past currents fill the present as much as present circulations</p><p>wash the past. Our brief excursion into darsana, dharma and ayurveda indicates</p><p>a sense of how epistemic border crossings effect transformations both</p><p>communally and individually.</p><p>In this pool of multiple worlds, ‘China’ qualifies as one node among many.</p><p>Its size and weight may affect the current more than most but all nodes,</p><p>no matter how big or small, form concentric circles that ripple outwards</p><p>to merge with others, no matter how far or near (see also the concept of</p><p>holographic entanglement in Chapter 10). As mentioned, the pool’s water</p><p>comes from and reflects systemic dynamics beyond the pool: for example the</p><p>sky and other environmental elements (like climate change), which could</p><p>disturb the pool’s tranquillity; ripples that evaporate over time (like stories</p><p>and memories, prayers and traditions) only to return as new raindrops (like</p><p>innovations trends, and revolutionary developments); and other, unforeseen</p><p>events (like inter- galactic contact).</p><p>Sameness (globalities) and difference (localities) thus coexist, co- penetrate</p><p>and co- produce. The very multiplicity of nodes, ripples and circulations in the</p><p>pool of multiple worlds ensures a mutual balancing that evens the flow – if</p><p>left alone as wuwei advises. With dynamic forces at play, water can stay fresh</p><p>and vital; otherwise, stagnant water- like epistemic violence/ epistemicide can</p><p>spread life- threatening disease (for example ecological disaster, economic</p><p>depression, ceaseless warfare) through mosquitoes (for example corrupt</p><p>bureaucracies, predatory capitalism) or some other vermin.</p><p>Still, one centripetal force applies: the heart. How else could we awaken</p><p>wisdom and enact selfless compassion? In Chinese medicine (zhongyi), the</p><p>heart organ ‘rules’ the body. The canonical source of Chinese medicine states</p><p>‘if the ruler [the heart] is enlightened, his subjects are in peace. To nourish</p><p>54</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>one’s life on the basis of this results in longevity’ (Huangdi Neijing Suwen</p><p>quoted in Unschuld and Tessenow, 2011: 155). In ayurveda, as noted, the</p><p>heart chakra alone connects the lower three vortices of physical health with</p><p>the upper three of spiritual well- being. The entire system hinges on the heart.</p><p>The critical reader may interject: where lies the heart or spirituality in</p><p>water? Here, I return to Laozi’s respect for water. Daoism treats water as</p><p>if it has volition. That is, water’s transformative qualities (‘meekest in the</p><p>world’/ ‘strongest in the world’) come from an inherent integrity and agency</p><p>(‘benefits everything’, ‘dwell in places loathed by the crowd’). For this</p><p>reason, water not only reflects, but also enables the dao. Like the human</p><p>body, our world- of- worlds encases a multitude of life forces operating in</p><p>dynamic tension. The deepest, most concrete chakras of safety, sexuality</p><p>and nourishment can rise to the higher, more abstract ones of creativity,</p><p>intuition and cosmic consciousness, just as the upper chakras can reach down</p><p>into the lower ones. Indeed, if the principle of wuwei presides, each chakra</p><p>flows naturally and organically into the other, stabilizing and strengthening</p><p>the whole.</p><p>What does this mean in terms of real- world policies and strategies? Let</p><p>us consider the implications of Daoist water, ayurvedic chakras, yin/ yang</p><p>trialectics, Advaita connectedness, and Buddhist duality with non- duality</p><p>for understanding ‘China’s rise.</p><p>China’s rise reappraised</p><p>As a thought experiment, let us designate ‘China’ as yin and the ‘West’ as yang.</p><p>(The specific designation does not matter since the process remains the same.)</p><p>With Daoist water as metaphor, we see that the initial dichotomy of ‘China’</p><p>and the ‘West’ as two fixed binaries cannot hold; instead, each principal</p><p>flows into the other in all ways and at all levels, ranging from the ‘micro’ to</p><p>the ‘macro’. A trialectical effect takes place, highlighting a heterotopic- third</p><p>domain that connects the principals while creating a new hybrid.</p><p>According to Zen Buddhism’s five- rank protocol:</p><p>1. The first two ranks recognize that a China- yin exists within a West- yang</p><p>as much as a West- yang exists in a China- yin. One prominent example</p><p>comes from immigrant communities in both places. For now, let us date</p><p>these to the 19th century: say, the Chinese diaspora in the West and</p><p>Western missionaries/ merchants/ expatriates in China. Each group may</p><p>assimilate into its new environment but both also retain their distinctive</p><p>features. Here, we begin to break down the nationalistic confines of the</p><p>Westphalian state to recognize the transnational communities that make</p><p>world politics. These include neighbouring sites like Southeast Asia,</p><p>which also have a long- standing Chinese diaspora, and, similarly, British</p><p>HEART AND SOUL FOR WORLD POLITICS</p><p>55</p><p>colonial ‘ex- pats’ in South and Southeast</p><p>Asia. In this way, we unlock the</p><p>Westphalian trap of prioritizing powerful ‘Great Gamers’ to the exclusion</p><p>and at the expense of the rest of the planet. Breaking this colonial bondage</p><p>enables us to pay attention to crucial connections with and across the</p><p>global South. ‘Epistemic violence’ and ‘epistemicide’ begin to dissipate.</p><p>2. The third rank posits that the two principals, China- yin and West- yang, can</p><p>come together. Communication becomes key. Not only would the two</p><p>communities have the most at stake to engage with each other directly</p><p>but also with compassion. There is a need to develop a model of dialogue</p><p>called Creative Listening and Speaking (CLS). It mandates listening with</p><p>the courage to speak and speaking with the humility to listen; otherwise,</p><p>neither listening nor speaking alone could dismantle hegemony. Again,</p><p>commonalities surge forward, transforming pre- existing conflicts and</p><p>contradictions into a trialectical heterotopia (Lederach provides examples</p><p>of such transformative processes in conflict resolution, though he does</p><p>not draw on Buddhism’s five- rank protocol. See Lederach, 2005: 5).</p><p>3. The fourth rank urges action based on this insight. We do not need to</p><p>list here specific policies and/ or strategies. The two principals’ internal</p><p>entwinements (yin- within- yang, yang- within- yin) can guide action</p><p>based on the imaginations and interests of the communities themselves</p><p>and in their own context rather than anything an outsider or lofty</p><p>principles could provide. The fourth rank underscores, also, the value</p><p>and relevance of these transnational communities for the state. They</p><p>have the expertise in language, cultural knowledge and assimilative</p><p>experiences to help the state transcend hackneyed dichotomies such</p><p>as ‘China’ vs the ‘West’.</p><p>4. The fifth rank affirms ‘unity attained’. Perhaps a ceremonious event may</p><p>suffice but it performs a necessary function to declare ‘there is no more</p><p>duality’. The event, moreover, will need to resonate contextually to attain</p><p>its full meaning; otherwise, community members will (rightfully) regard</p><p>it as a cynical move to mask hegemony in ‘friendlier, gentler’ guise. For</p><p>example, Koreans rarely take seriously Japanese ‘apologies’ for the latter’s</p><p>annexation of the peninsula from 1910 to 1945. The former see the latter</p><p>as cynical political moves to appease domestic factional politics rather</p><p>than an expression of sincere apology to Koreans. (Hong, 2016)</p><p>Water as metaphor offers innovative strategies for interstate conflict as well.</p><p>For instance, an ayurvedic lens on China’s regional conflicts would attribute</p><p>these to a fixation with the lower chakras only, thereby forcing hostilities due</p><p>to a classic (in)security dilemma. Each state seeks to protect or enhance its</p><p>own security (safety) by making hypermasculine- militaristic poses (sexuality)</p><p>that spiral everyone’s sense of insecurity. Meanwhile, the population’s ability</p><p>to feed itself (nourishment) suffers, as national security consumes more and</p><p>56</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>more resources, even as the state claims to protect all aspects of the supposed</p><p>‘heartland’.</p><p>However, the upper chakras can guide the lower ones to reach a healthier,</p><p>happier, more sustainable outcome. The fifth chakra of creativity, for</p><p>example, could inspire use of the arts and humanities to broaden, not to</p><p>mention deepen, sovereign relations among peoples in both states (Ling</p><p>and Nakamura, 2019). The governments and societies of China and Japan</p><p>could re- appreciate what each has meant to the other from ancient times</p><p>to ‘catch- up’ modernity (Ling, 2016b). With two millennia of history</p><p>together, China and Japan cannot – should not – risk everything on the</p><p>past 200 years. The region, furthermore, abounds with strategies for conflict</p><p>resolution that pre- date Westphalia (Pan, 2011; Chong, 2012). Why not</p><p>draw on these precedents?</p><p>The highest chakras help these strategies reach fruition. With intuition</p><p>and cosmic consciousness, we gain a sense of ‘awakened wisdom and selfless</p><p>compassion’. We have a reason, method and ideal to dissolve Westphalia’s</p><p>deadly deadlock of narrow, nationalistic interests set in immutable, binary</p><p>oppositions. From this basis, world politics no longer divides into self-</p><p>aggrandizing, hypermasculinized ‘Great Gamers’ vs invisibilized, feminized</p><p>‘small fry’. From ‘epistemic violence’ and/ or ‘epistemicide’, world politics can</p><p>embark, instead, on engagement, learning and mutuality: that is, Interbeing.</p><p>Conclusion: what is next?</p><p>Former colonies rightfully and joyfully celebrated their independence after</p><p>the Second World War – only to discover the scourge of neocolonialism</p><p>and neo- imperialism in the decades following. Some contend that current</p><p>levels of exploitation by the global North over the global South compare</p><p>with, if not supersede, those of colonial times (Amin, 2004; Foster and</p><p>McChesney, 2012; Smith, 2015).</p><p>Still, the situation is not all dire. Transformation is under way. Structurally,</p><p>‘emerging economies’ such as the BRICS (Brazil- Russia- India- China- South</p><p>Africa) are forging ‘alliances’; similar moves such as in BCIM (Bangladesh-</p><p>China- India- Myanmar) are occurring regionally (Lama, 2016). Intellectually,</p><p>subaltern scholars are engaging in ‘epistemic disobedience’ (Mignolo, 2009)</p><p>to forge new- found solidarities within and across the global South. IR scholars</p><p>need to recognize, also, that the field does not – cannot – represent all</p><p>intellectual activity in ‘China’ or ‘India’ or anywhere else outside the West.</p><p>Plenty of new thinking percolates in other areas (see, for example, the journal</p><p>Inter- Asia Cultural Studies). IR scholars need to broaden their references.</p><p>To break out of Westphalia’s deadly deadlock, however, we need spiritual</p><p>emancipation, not just analytical, political or ethical. A water- like epistemic</p><p>compassion will help us experience Others directly, like Dōgen’s mountains,</p><p>HEART AND SOUL FOR WORLD POLITICS</p><p>57</p><p>rather than imposing our assumptions about who and what they are.</p><p>Accepting non- duality with duality begins the process of systemically-</p><p>accommodating Advaita’s ‘transience’ and ‘connectedness’ and the dao’s</p><p>yin- within- yang, yang- within- yin. The bodhisattva Guanyin’s ‘thousand arms</p><p>and eyes’, like darsana, dharma and ayurveda, become more than metaphors.</p><p>They shine the light for action.</p><p>A trialectical- third of spiritual emancipation emerges. It gives us new goals,</p><p>desires and voices to evolve global affairs. A single, hegemonic node for Great</p><p>Gamers will find itself isolated and eventually disappearing. Instead, multiple</p><p>nodes will circulate and merge vibrantly in the pool of world politics. It is the</p><p>mix that makes our world- of- worlds. The rest of the world thus no longer</p><p>serves as a mere afterthought, at best, or a playground for the powerful, at</p><p>worst. All can participate in their own way and on their own terms.</p><p>IR’s blinkers finally fall off. With philosophies such as Advaita and</p><p>Daoism, augmented by methods like Zen Buddhism’s five- rank protocol,</p><p>epistemic compassion opens circulations of ‘abundance’ and a ‘richness of</p><p>being’ (Feyerabend, 1999) previously denied in Westphalian IR. Ancient</p><p>sources of wisdom such as darsana, dharma, ayurveda and zhongyi flow with</p><p>ontological parity to currents of contemporary Western epistemes. After</p><p>all, the dao reminds us, the ‘meekest’ waves of creativity can penetrate the</p><p>‘strongest’ rocks of hegemonic complicity and arrogance. Interbeing comes</p><p>into sight: ‘you are in me as I am in you’. We paddle eagerly towards its shore.</p><p>Acknowledgements</p><p>This chapter was originally published as L.H.M. 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Cheng was not merely</p><p>vexed by the mutually reinforcing centrifugal forces of Beijing’s growing</p><p>authoritarianism, which prevented free exchange of ideas both within China</p><p>and between China and the world, but also by the intensifying (and thinly</p><p>veiled xenophobic) Western rhetoric that China is either a threat to be</p><p>managed or a problem to be resolved. While these dynamics backstopped</p><p>Cheng’s immediate concern, her main preoccupation has been with the</p><p>disregard for the language with which knowledge about China and China’s</p><p>role in the world is produced. She insisted that language is not just a means</p><p>for communication. It is primarily ‘an instrument of power, a measure of</p><p>humanity, a map for world- making’. Cheng called for building polyphonic</p><p>understandings that challenge the linguistic hegemony of knowledge</p><p>production ‘both in my birth country and my adopted home, [where]</p><p>English is coded with whiteness and whiteness signals expertise’. In the</p><p>context of such silencing of ‘other tongues’, what counts as ‘Chinese- ness’</p><p>and who gets to define it is never a neutral exercise. Cheng concludes with</p><p>the poignant observation that the:</p><p>end of the world does not arrive through water, fire, or the plague: it</p><p>begins with the slow death of language, when words grow stale and</p><p>complacent with power, when artificial boundaries between nations</p><p>harden. A new order for our collective survival can only be birthed</p><p>when we acquire new ways of speaking. (Cheng, 2021)</p><p>WHAT CAN GUANXI INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BE ABOUT?</p><p>63</p><p>It seems that a similar malady of language plagues the analysis of</p><p>International Relations (IR), especially when it comes to theorizing</p><p>China’s growing prominence on the world stage (Pan and Kavalski, 2018;</p><p>Nordin et al, 2019). To paraphrase Cheng’s concern, is IR able to speak</p><p>in tongues unyoked from the bifurcating Thucydides Trap and security</p><p>dilemmas of power transition, which frame the theoretical and policy</p><p>imaginaries of the discipline? Is it possible to articulate global relations</p><p>inculcated in connections, ties and interactions rather than in the bromidic</p><p>division between ‘those who are with us and those who are against us’?</p><p>It appears that IR struggles to foster fresh ways of speaking, seeing and</p><p>encountering the world that can help it generate meaningful answers to</p><p>the pressing questions of our times. Instead, the dominant models of IR</p><p>continue to be implicated in the construction of a world that is unravelling</p><p>socially, fracturing economically and deteriorating ecologically (Acharya,</p><p>2000; Cudworth et al, 2018). There is an urgent need to transcend</p><p>established paradigms and practices privileging one set of experiences,</p><p>expertise and knowledge over another (Kavalski, 2020b; Tsui, 2021). And</p><p>this is why the position and framing of China’s rise in IR discourse gains</p><p>its significance – it offers an opportunity and a promise for both theoretical</p><p>and conceptual pluralism in the study of world affairs.</p><p>To begin with, the study of how China thinks and in what ways its hoary</p><p>history and traditions inform the idiosyncrasies of Beijing’s international</p><p>outlook have grown into a cottage industry, both in IR and across the full</p><p>spectrum of the humanities and social sciences. More often than not, such</p><p>accounts present China as a hybrid of ancient and modern curiosities and</p><p>fail to construct any kind of proximity – cultural, historical, economic,</p><p>let alone normative – between China and its external observers (Pan, 2012;</p><p>Zuchowska, 2013; Kavalski, 2017a). Instead, China is depicted largely as</p><p>a distant stranger and/ or an awkward giant, which seems to count in the</p><p>structural stratifications of Eurocentric IR only ‘as museumized history,</p><p>lucrative ethno- tourism, or an idiosyncrasy (“local colour”) from a bygone</p><p>era’ (Ling et al, 2016: 113). At the heart of such representations appears to</p><p>be China’s positioning in European intellectual imagination as the ultimate</p><p>Other or what Michel Foucault (2002) called heterotopia – a disturbing</p><p>place, whose difference ‘undermines language’. China becomes ‘the Other</p><p>country’ not merely because of its location on the opposite end of the</p><p>Eurasian landmass, but also because it represents ‘a culture entirely devoted</p><p>to the ordering of space, but one that does not distribute the multiplicity</p><p>of existing things into any of the categories that make it possible for us to</p><p>name, speak, and think’ (Foucault, 2002: xix).</p><p>In this setting, it should not be surprising that the recent promulgation</p><p>of Chinese concepts into the ratiocination of IR questions ‘the very</p><p>“constitutional structures” that are the core of the international system’</p><p>64</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>(Carlson, 2010: 96; Zhang, 2021; Zhao, 2021). In fact, it has urged IR</p><p>theory to go back to the road less travelled of encountering the multiverse of</p><p>relations animating global life. This chapter therefore intends an interpretative</p><p>journey into the Chinese concepts and definitions of the international.</p><p>The intention is to explore whether these ideas are indeed so heterotopic</p><p>as to be unintelligible to IR. It has to be stated at the outset that the focus</p><p>on guanxi (traditional: 關係 simplified: 关系) is not entirely coincidental.</p><p>It is one of the words that make up the term ‘international relations’ in</p><p>Chinese – guoji guanxi (traditional: 國際關係 simplified: 国际关系). In this</p><p>respect, it should appear surprising that there has been so little attention</p><p>in the literature on IR on the meaning and content of the terms that go</p><p>into the making of the Chinese phrase for IR. The contention is that such</p><p>disregard illustrates the Eurocentric commitments of the discipline, which</p><p>has consciously discouraged students of world politics to be ‘curious about</p><p>the “non- West” but has encouraged them to explain away non- Western</p><p>dynamics by superimposing Western categories’ (Bilgin and Ling, 2017: 11;</p><p>Hobson, 2020; Seo, 2021).</p><p>Post- Western scholars (of different ilk) have long bemoaned the demand to</p><p>constantly qualify, bracket and signpost their engagement with non- Western</p><p>ideas, while the tendency to promote (allegedly) Western concepts – such</p><p>as sovereignty, democracy, human rights – in the abstract (not least because</p><p>of their presumed universalism) has never seemed to trouble ‘Eurocentric</p><p>IR’; in fact, it has been ‘fetishized’ in the narratives of its interlocutors</p><p>(Chowdhry, 2007: 106). While this chapter does not suggest that post-</p><p>Western IRs have to engage in a reverse disregard for Eurocentric ideas, it</p><p>insists that mainstream IR have a culturally attuned and contextually verdant</p><p>engagement with ideas independent of the practices of the governments</p><p>that administer the territories and societies from which such ideas originate.</p><p>Such an endeavour acts simultaneously as a reminder about the multiversal</p><p>world we inhabit and the composite nature of IR’s episteme.</p><p>The attention of this study is to the ways in which the affordances of</p><p>relationality are either foreshadowed or foreshortened by the engagement</p><p>with the Chinese concept of guanxi. The following sections tease out the</p><p>content and practices of this term and assess its implications for IR theory</p><p>and practice. The necessary caveat is that the study focuses on the ideal type</p><p>inherent in the guanxi model of relationality rather than the actual practices</p><p>of Chinese foreign policy (Kavalski, 2018a). While it is certainly possible</p><p>to establish such connections, the point here is to draw attention to the</p><p>epistemic and ontological relationality made possible by the encounter with</p><p>guanxi. The claim is that the defining feature of the Western/ Eurocentric</p><p>mainstream of IR is its lack of relationality. Conversely, what makes post-</p><p>Western IR ‘post- Western’ is its responsiveness and receptivity to perspectives</p><p>that are not one’s own. The concluding section of this chapter evokes these</p><p>WHAT CAN GUANXI INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BE ABOUT?</p><p>65</p><p>registers of worlding mutuality by elaborating the ways in which guanxi</p><p>can help transcend the Western/ non- Western dichotomies that dominate</p><p>so much of the literatures both on relationality in IR and IR theory more</p><p>generally. It is with the intention to aid the disclosure of such ontological</p><p>and epistemic relationality that this investigation enlists the Chinese concept</p><p>of guanxi.</p><p>Guanxi: what’s in a name?</p><p>Guanxi appears to be one of those essentially contested concepts, whose</p><p>meaning and practices are anything but clear cut and universally accepted.</p><p>Most commentators tend to take as their point of departure the etymology</p><p>of the two characters that make guanxi: ‘guan means barriers and xi means</p><p>connections’ (Jia, 2006: 49– 54; Kavalski, 2018b). The literal meaning</p><p>of guanxi then was ‘connection across barriers’ or ‘pass the gate and get</p><p>connected’ (Luo, 1997: 49). This framing should not be misunderstood as a</p><p>suggestion of a fixed and inflexible framework of exclusion. Instead, guanxi</p><p>denotes openness to connections with others and infers a far more flexible</p><p>and dynamic ‘web of relationships that functions as the set of interlocking</p><p>laces which connects people of different weis [positions/ status]’ (Hwang,</p><p>1987: 963). It is also claimed that even though pragmatic, a guanxi relationship</p><p>is profoundly infused with ‘a higher sense of responsibility towards others’</p><p>(Tong, 2006: 309).</p><p>More often than not, the concept of guanxi reflects the establishment and</p><p>maintenance of ‘an intricate and pervasive relational network’ engendered</p><p>by the practice of unlimited exchange of favours between its members and</p><p>bound by reciprocal obligation, assurance and mutuality (Pye, 1982: 882).</p><p>Yet, many have hinted that such practices reflect a far richer meaning of</p><p>the term in Chinese than in its English counterpart ‘relationship’ – namely,</p><p>‘guanxi refers to relationship in the most profound sense of the term’ (Bell,</p><p>2000: 133). Owing to the dynamism of social interactions, ‘the final word</p><p>on guanxi can never be concluded’ since the practices that it denotes are</p><p>constantly evolving to adapt to the ever- changing contexts and patterns</p><p>of global life (Yang, 2002: 459; Cho and Kavalski, 2017). This fluidity</p><p>has permeated the English language literature on the topic through the</p><p>multiple translations that the term has acquired – ‘relations’, ‘connections’,</p><p>‘friendship’, ‘networks of reciprocal bonds’, ‘social capital’, ‘nepotism’ and</p><p>‘corruption’. While such multiplicity of meanings should not necessarily</p><p>be surprising (after all, any translation can offer only a partial impression of</p><p>the ideational context within which the term originates), it still suggests the</p><p>layered and contingent framing in the Chinese original as well.</p><p>In this respect, there are a couple of puzzling features when it comes</p><p>to the term guanxi. On the one hand, despite its indeterminacy, guanxi</p><p>66</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>occupies a central position in the Chinese worldview. It has been labelled</p><p>as ‘the lifeblood of all things Chinese – business, politics, and society’</p><p>(Luo, 1997: 45). The grandee of China Studies, Lucian Pye (1995: 35)</p><p>referred to it as ‘one of the most fundamental aspects of Chinese political</p><p>behaviour’, while the political philosopher Wenshan Jia (2006: 49– 54) claims</p><p>that guanxi is one of the central philosophical concepts, which ‘reflects</p><p>the Chinese way to know about reality (ontology), the Chinese way to</p><p>interpret reality (phenomenology), and the Chinese values about humanity</p><p>(axiology)’. On the other hand, guanxi’s significance appears to be of a very</p><p>recent provenance. While in circulation a century ago, the term was not</p><p>deemed significant enough to warrant inclusion in the two classic Chinese</p><p>dictionaries – the 1915 ci yuan (‘sources of words’) and the 1936 ci hai (‘word</p><p>sea’) (Luo, 1997: 44). In this respect, guanxi’s rise to prominence is closely</p><p>associated with social, political and economic processes set in motion during</p><p>the second half of the 20th century. Some have even speculated whether</p><p>there is anything particularly Chinese about guanxi or whether it is merely</p><p>the Chinese variant of a global social phenomenon for the reliance on favours</p><p>to achieve political, economic and social goals (Gold et al, 2002: 13– 14;</p><p>Ledeneva, 2008).</p><p>It is also noteworthy that such rearticulation of the term and practices</p><p>of guanxi was occurring simultaneously across the expanse of the ‘Chinese</p><p>commonwealth’ – in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and</p><p>Singapore, as well as the Sinophonic diaspora around the globe (Yeung</p><p>and Tung, 1996: 58). It did not evade the</p><p>attention of experienced China</p><p>hands: while in the past ‘guanxi relations were suspect as the source of</p><p>corruption and injustice, they have now found champions who saw them</p><p>as a basis of harmony and a contrast to individualism’ (Rozman, 2011: 90–</p><p>4). In this respect, commentators have had to contend that the practices of</p><p>guanxi have acquired positive and negative connotations, both of which seem</p><p>to arise from its propensity for subversion of state structures. In the case of</p><p>the former, guanxi assists with bottom- up and civil society empowerment</p><p>by permitting ‘individuals to use their social ingenuity to build a web of</p><p>personal relationships’ (Tsui and Farh, 1997: 60). A number of commentators</p><p>find the origins of this trend during the Maoist years in China, when guanxi</p><p>networks provided ordinary people with alternative forms of solidarity, which</p><p>opened spaces for the subversion of established hierarchies and the mitigation</p><p>of the political pressures imposed on everyday life (Yang, 2002: 466; Cho</p><p>and Kavalski, 2015: 433).</p><p>The negative flavour of guanxi comes from its association with graft. The</p><p>very patterns that make guanxi a ‘weapon of the weak’ (Ledeneva, 2008: 124)</p><p>are also the key ingredients of its dark side. Yet, rather than essentializing it</p><p>as a cultural trait associated with Asian backwardness, this aspect of guanxi</p><p>can be read as an idiosyncratic encounter between the forces of transnational</p><p>WHAT CAN GUANXI INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BE ABOUT?</p><p>67</p><p>capitalism and the economic development of the state (Yang, 2002, 468;</p><p>Horesh and Kavalski, 2014). As the late Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father</p><p>of modern Singapore, has acknowledged, the Chinese use guanxi ‘to make</p><p>up for the lack of rule of law and transparency in rules and regulation’</p><p>(cited in Yeung and Tung, 1996: 56). In this setting, phrases such as ‘crony</p><p>capitalism’ and ‘Confucian nepotism’ seem to overlook the socio- temporal</p><p>contingency underpinning the bounds of obligation and networks of support</p><p>that characterize the practices of guanxi (Yang, 2002: 469– 76). In fact, some</p><p>have gone as far as to claim that what (Western) observers usually criticize</p><p>as the corrupt side of guanxi is in fact the misunderstood ‘Confucian Ethic’</p><p>of Asian capitalism (Luo, 1997: 48).</p><p>As the earlier discussion demonstrates, both the positive and negative</p><p>features of guanxi reflect an idiosyncratic coalescence between tradition and</p><p>modernity – or what some have referred to as the ‘critical inheritance and</p><p>critical transformation of Chinese thought’ – in the process of achieving</p><p>collective goals (Liu, 2014: 121; Kavalski, 2017b: 232). In particular,</p><p>guanxi reflects a commitment to act in accordance with social demands and</p><p>expectations. As the eminent Chinese scholar Liang Shuming insists, the</p><p>Chinese worldview is ‘neither geren benwei (individual- based) nor shehui</p><p>benwei (society- based), but guanxi benwei (relation- based)’ (cited in Gold</p><p>et al, 2002: 10). The emphasis on relationality infers a different way of</p><p>being present in the world. In post- Western IR scholarship such difference</p><p>pivots on the contrast between relational and autonomous self (Nordin and</p><p>Smith, 2019; Shimizu and Noro, 2021). Associated with Western intellectual</p><p>traditions, the latter insists on discrete subjectivities, praises individualism,</p><p>and values and normalizes the lack of dependence on others. The relational</p><p>self, on the other hand, insists that individuals do not and cannot exist unless</p><p>they are enmeshed in relations with others; in other words, there is no self</p><p>without relations. Such framing of the relational self uncovers the ‘Chinese</p><p>worldview as an integrated system of subject and object: the individual is</p><p>placed in the spatial- temporal location of the world, with her experiences,</p><p>values, and expectations constantly shaping and being shaped by the world’</p><p>(Liu, 2014: 124).</p><p>In this setting, it is the guanxi itself (rather than the individuals involved)</p><p>that has agency – namely, it is ‘the “relation that selects,” meaning that</p><p>relations shape an actor’s identity and influence her behaviour’ (Qin, 2009: 9).</p><p>It seems that the origins of this conceptualization can be traced back to</p><p>Confucius himself, for whom ‘unless there are at least two human beings</p><p>there are no human beings’ (Rosemont, 2006: 11– 17). The relational self,</p><p>thereby, is ‘one which is intensely aware of the social presence of others’</p><p>(Ho, 1995: 117). The interdependence and reciprocity characterizing such</p><p>relational self accords social relations much greater significance, and relations</p><p>are often seen as ends in and of themselves rather than means for realizing</p><p>68</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>various individual goals (Tu, 1985: 133; Tsui and Farh, 1997: 61; Zolkos</p><p>and Kavalski, 2007: 381). The key inference is that participants in a guanxi</p><p>perceive each other to be ‘role occupants rather than individuals’ (Hwang,</p><p>1987: 945; Shih, 2021).</p><p>Owing to the fluidity of the way in which these relational roles are lived,</p><p>guanxi asserts that change rather than stability is an endemic feature of global</p><p>life. Both through attrition or accretion and depending on the circumstances,</p><p>issues and situations, the guanxi relationship has diverse and contingent</p><p>iterations. Such dynamic multiplicity of interdependent conditioning factors</p><p>engenders an interpersonal realm whose complexity is only partially known</p><p>to the participating actors (Chang and Holt, 1991: 34). This calls for a</p><p>contextual embeddedness within the transient constellations of factors and</p><p>actors that impact on the content and trajectories of a relationship. Thus,</p><p>the long- term orientation of guanxi inserts a modicum of predictability</p><p>by lowering the transaction costs. At the same time, it can be utilized for</p><p>multiple and diverse purposes, while engendering resilience (Pye, 1995: 44;</p><p>Kavalski, 2012b: 74).</p><p>What might we guanxi about in IR?</p><p>How would IR look like if we were to imagine it from the point of view of</p><p>guanxi? To begin with, the outline of such an endeavour should not appear</p><p>unusual (let alone heterotopic) to those attuned to the inescapable condition</p><p>of mutual encounter defining global life (Ling, 2014; Uemura, 2015; Nordin</p><p>et al, 2019; Kurki, 2020; Trownsell et al, 2021). In particular, the relational</p><p>pattern envisaged by the guanxi perspective supports the efforts to articulate</p><p>most issues plaguing IR as ‘communication problems’ (Risse, 2000). The</p><p>critical contribution of guanxi to these conversations is that IR is not merely</p><p>an outcome of communicative actions (or a solution to communicative</p><p>problems) but reflects the willingness of actors to expose themselves to the</p><p>fluidity of ongoing relations with others. This engenders a rather gimballed</p><p>view of global life – just like a ship’s compass (or a gimbal), the patterns of</p><p>world affairs are made up of multiple, interdependent and constantly shifting</p><p>spheres of relations. Each of these spheres represents an emergent and highly</p><p>contingent nexus of complex relations, which interact simultaneously at</p><p>different spatial and temporal scales (Kavalski, 2011). The result is a multi-</p><p>scalar framing of global life in which diverse layers of actors and agency (and</p><p>the various systems, institutions and regimes which they inhabit) animate</p><p>overlapping levels of contingent aggregation. The concept of guanxi, thereby,</p><p>illuminates that the complex patterns of global life resonate with relationality</p><p>and dynamism, rather than the static and spatial arrangements implicit in the</p><p>self- other, centre- periphery, hegemon- challenger models underpinning the</p><p>binary metanarratives of IR (Shimizu, 2015; Kavalski, 2021a).</p><p>WHAT CAN GUANXI INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BE ABOUT?</p><p>69</p><p>In contrast to the dualistic bifurcations that dominate IR imaginaries, the</p><p>concept of guanxi reframes world order as a gimballed interface suffused</p><p>with the fragility, fluidity and mutuality of global interactions.</p><p>Hence, the</p><p>deployment of the concept of guanxi in IR’s knowledge production discloses</p><p>global life as an emergent, complexly related web of interactions, which</p><p>is changing constantly and invariably in flux, (trans)forming and adapting</p><p>to the emergent rhythms of new circumstances and contexts (Kavalski,</p><p>2015). Such a gimballed outlook not only suggests a radical reconsideration</p><p>of the disciplinary mainstream, but is also profoundly at odds with the</p><p>underlying ontological substantialism of IR (see Chapter 10; Pan, 2021).</p><p>In fact, in its attempt to ‘abandon the futile quest to articulate a single basis</p><p>on which to produce knowledge’, relationality – especially, that prompted</p><p>by the encounter with guanxi – proffers a meaningful contribution to the</p><p>articulation of a ‘post- foundational IR’ (Jackson, 2011: 189).</p><p>Guanxi’s harmonious respect for the other</p><p>The focus on guanxi brings out that the basic ontological condition of</p><p>international actors is relational – namely, the content of their existence</p><p>as actors is constituted inter- subjectively during the very process of</p><p>interaction (Kavalski, 2013; Kurki, 2021). Relationality reflects a condition</p><p>of intelligibility for the sense- making processes on the world stage. Thus,</p><p>owing to prior conditions of relationality, an ‘international’ world of</p><p>holistically structured meaning appears in the first place. In this setting,</p><p>the various actors that animate global life can be articulated, encountered</p><p>and accounted for because they are (always and) already relationally</p><p>structured (Zolkos and Kavalski, 2008; Tickner and Querejazu, 2021). The</p><p>decentring implicit in such engagement draws attention to the idiosyncratic</p><p>structural conditions and unique cultural categories that contribute to the</p><p>participants’ thinking about and involvement in interpersonal situations</p><p>(Hwang, 1987: 946).</p><p>A key feature of the guanxi outlook is the emphasis on harmony (Shih</p><p>and Huang, 2016). The discussion of the Chinese concept of harmony</p><p>has attracted significant attention in recent years (Pan, 2011). What</p><p>is important for the purposes of the current investigation is that these</p><p>discussions of harmony draw attention to ‘respect for the other’ as the</p><p>‘cardinal value’ of China’s strategic outlook (Womack, 2008: 294– 7).</p><p>Such respect for the other articulates relationality through webs of ‘non-</p><p>wilful [and non- domineering] actions directed to realising the potential</p><p>events and others, and is action that animates others to act on their own</p><p>behalf ’ (Barbalet, 2015, 342– 7). The mutually benevolent relationships</p><p>adumbrated by such harmonious encounters advance relational agency</p><p>as a dialogical process, whose effects involve the efforts of all sides of the</p><p>70</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>exchange. The point here is that guanxi ties are volitional (and not forced</p><p>upon the participants) – actors intentionally commit to the interaction.</p><p>It is for this reason that guanxi relations are characterized by dedicated</p><p>cultivation (Barbalet, 2015: 1042). Such guanxi dynamics can be seen at</p><p>work in China’s ‘policy of “pre- emptive participation” ’ (Paltiel, 2009: 49)</p><p>in relations with a wide range of other international actors not only as a</p><p>reassurance strategy aimed at allaying their concerns, but primarily as an</p><p>effort to foster ongoing interactions with them.</p><p>Agency – especially international agency – in such a relational setting</p><p>is not about the intentional projection of self- interest, but about strategic</p><p>receptivity – that is, ‘knowing oneself insofar as one is related to others, and</p><p>knowing others insofar as others are related to oneself ’ (Kavalski, 2012a: 87;</p><p>Wen and Wang, 2013: 192). Guanxi, thereby, presages an understanding</p><p>of international action and agency – both cognitively and affectively – as</p><p>simultaneously shaped and mediated by ethical obligations and commitments</p><p>to others (the structure and content of which are acquired through the</p><p>very relationships by which ethical obligations and commitments to others</p><p>are disclosed). The currency of such relationality is not legitimacy (as</p><p>most IR perspectives seem to suggest), but reputation. The cultivation</p><p>of reputation (or what IR observers tend to refer as status) is the main</p><p>aim of the harmonious respect for the other. As Jack Barbalet cogently</p><p>observes, reputational standing is a social and not an economic resource.</p><p>Thus, guanxi is deployed not with the aim to gain access to economic or</p><p>political resources, but is ‘primarily directed to acquiring and expending</p><p>social resources’ (Barbalet, 2015: 1044; Zwart, 2016: 42). Not only that,</p><p>but such understanding of relationality demands that those engaged in</p><p>interactions be ‘more aware of the relationships that constitute the objects</p><p>of their concern than they are of their own interests’ (Barbalet, 2015: 346;</p><p>Kavalski, 2011: 10).</p><p>It is in this setting that xinyong (trustworthiness) – the reputation for</p><p>meeting one’s obligations to others – gains its significance as ‘the most</p><p>valuable asset’ in the transactional web of guanxi (DeGlopper, 1995: 205– 6).</p><p>Thus, rather than facilitating the legitimacy of one’s actions, the strategic aim</p><p>of guanxi is to enhance the trustworthiness of actors by providing series of</p><p>situations in which they can continuously enact (as well as be evaluated on)</p><p>their ‘meeting the expectations of others’ (Ho, 1976: 873). In this setting, the</p><p>Chinese claim of a harmonious respect for others – for instance, as asserted</p><p>in the discourses of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – is nothing short of</p><p>a strategic desire for status recognition (Callahan, 2001). Motivated by the</p><p>status insecurity associated with the relational constitution of international</p><p>interactions, the operational beliefs of guanxi provide ongoing modalities</p><p>for engendering trust by demonstrating China’s capacity and willingness to</p><p>meet its obligations to others.</p><p>WHAT CAN GUANXI INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BE ABOUT?</p><p>71</p><p>Guanxi’s logic of relationships</p><p>Guanxi implies both a propensity and a capacity for living with and in</p><p>ambiguity. In this respect, it provides a ‘relational’ (as opposed to ‘rule- based’)</p><p>framework for the meaningful contextualization in the shifting patterns of</p><p>global life (Qin, 2011). Thus, it is relations that are not only at the heart of</p><p>explaining and understanding the world, but also central to its observation</p><p>and encounter. As Qin Yaqing (2009) demonstrates, this understanding</p><p>reframes power as a ‘relational practice’, whose meaning is distinct from</p><p>its traditional association in IR with the possession of material capacities</p><p>for influence (regardless of whether they are coercive or not). On the one</p><p>hand, relations (and the webs of interactions that they constitute) provide a</p><p>platform for the exercise of power. On the other hand, relations themselves</p><p>have power – namely, they frame future patterns of interaction (Qin, 2009: 9).</p><p>This then becomes the centrepiece for the ‘logic of relationships’ animating</p><p>global life (Kavalski, 2013). Such logic</p><p>assumes that while the future is unknown, the partners in the future</p><p>are the same as in the past and present. Therefore, the significance of</p><p>any specific interaction lies in how it shapes a particular relationship.</p><p>… The bottom line in a relationship logic is that both sides feel that</p><p>they are better off if the relationship continues – this is the minimum</p><p>meaning of ‘mutual benefit’. A normal relationship does not require</p><p>symmetry of partners or equality of exchanges, but it does require</p><p>reciprocity [that is, respect for the other]. (Womack, 2008: 295– 7)</p><p>It should be stated at the outset that such framing should not be misunderstood</p><p>as an indication of an altruistic outlook on global life, but as an effective</p><p>strategy for managing a hyper- social environment. The logic of relationships</p><p>therefore outlines a ‘context for action’ in which goals can be achieved</p><p>through an active, committed and responsible</p><p>involvement in world affairs</p><p>(Russell and Tokatlian, 2003: 17). Informed by the extremely situational</p><p>and particularistic nature of Chinese culture, the logic of relationships infers</p><p>that as the circumstances of interactions change, so too will the patterns of</p><p>guanxi (Pye, 1995: 46). Such framing also undermines the linear causality</p><p>backstopping Western takes on relationality – namely, that if two (or more</p><p>actors) interact with one another their relations will necessarily lead to</p><p>greater intimacy (Parks, 1982).</p><p>Rather than focusing on the personality or identity of participating</p><p>actors, the logic of relationships suggests that the conditions for interaction</p><p>‘cannot be forced’ and remain ‘largely unknown and unknowable’ (Chang</p><p>and Holt, 1991: 54; emphasis in original). Thus, the process of interaction</p><p>facilitates the likelihood of future relations (which is the key strategic</p><p>72</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>function of guanxi) rather than intimacy. This is not to assert that the</p><p>process is not affective. The point here is that guanxi is not about the</p><p>subjective qualities of the participants, but about the process of interactions</p><p>that they enact (Ho, 2019). This demands both contextual sensitivity and</p><p>an ongoing commitment to the deliberate practices of relationality. What</p><p>is crucial about such logic of relationships is that as the hub of social</p><p>knowledge and social life, the patterns of guanxi intimate that shared</p><p>understandings are not imposed as rules, rights or obligations, but emerge</p><p>in the process of interaction. Such framing informs the formulation of</p><p>external relations.</p><p>Owing to the contextual ubiquity of guanxi, foreign policy making</p><p>becomes a contingent outcome of relational interactions between actors –</p><p>that is, the relational context frames the policy response, but because of</p><p>its inherent fluidity, policy is expected to fluctuate (Zhang, 2015: 211).</p><p>In an interesting move, some commentators have inferred the ‘logic of</p><p>relationships’ though Beijing’s practice of ‘third culture building to improve</p><p>international relations’ (Jia, 2009). The proposition is that guanxi can beget a</p><p>‘third culture’ through the practices of deliberate and repeated interactions,</p><p>which brings together elements of the cultures of the interacting actors as</p><p>well as new ones which emerge in the process of doing things together. It</p><p>is this dynamism that informs the ‘deeply relational’ character of Chinese</p><p>foreign policy (Jia, 2009: 322– 5; Xue, 2021). Rather than impeding the</p><p>policy process, such contextual attunement of the logic of relationships</p><p>suggests the unexpected opportunities made possible by the ‘third culture’</p><p>of guanxi – for instance, the unintended evolution of the Shanghai- 5 into</p><p>the BRI via the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Kavalski, 2010).</p><p>Guanxi’s community of practice</p><p>It is communities of practice that locate the ‘third culture’ engendered by</p><p>guanxi’s logic of relationships. The inference here is that international agency</p><p>emerges in a community, not in a vacuum. As suggested, it is the relational</p><p>(rather than the rule- based) nature of guanxi that backstops the dialogical</p><p>outcomes of its effects (Kavalski, 2020a; Shih and Huang, 2020). In particular,</p><p>it is guanxi’s commitment to deliberate and unconditional sociality that</p><p>motivates shared meaning- generation. The suggestion thereby is that while</p><p>strategic, the relationality of guanxi is not motivated by self- interest (that is,</p><p>it is not an instrumental means to an end). Instead, the driving force appears</p><p>to be a commitment to the practice of doing things together – an aspect that</p><p>can explain China’s general aversion to formal institutional arrangements and</p><p>the imposition of conditionality on its partners (Walton and Kavalski, 2017).</p><p>In the context of such ongoing and contingent mutual co- constitution,</p><p>any occurrence does not exist merely in isolation (as a standalone event),</p><p>WHAT CAN GUANXI INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BE ABOUT?</p><p>73</p><p>but reflects a nexus of innumerable interactions which interpenetrate one</p><p>another in the shifting tapestry of social relations.</p><p>Hence, the attentiveness to relationality makes a powerful case both for</p><p>envisioning the fluid iterations of social transactions that percolate and gain</p><p>salience in the context of ongoing interactions and for creating ethical</p><p>openings to reimagine the complex webs of entanglements and encounters</p><p>with others beyond the divisiveness and violence suffusing current domestic,</p><p>national and world politics (Zolkos and Kavalski, 2016). As such, the</p><p>relational communities of practice framed by the patterns of guanxi mandate</p><p>tolerance of at least as much diversity and contradictions as evident in the</p><p>social relations being performed. Such relationality is not zero- sum – that</p><p>is, ‘the debit and credit sides of this [relational] balance sheet are never in</p><p>equilibrium’ – because this would spell the end of guanxi (Yeung and Tung,</p><p>1996: 55). At the same time, the value of the personal favour rendered in</p><p>the context of guanxi (called renqing in Chinese) ‘can never be calculated</p><p>objectively’ – instead, its assessment is subject to an ongoing and complex</p><p>‘blend of cost and quality and relationship in which one or two elements</p><p>may be interpreted, by some people at certain times, as being more valuable</p><p>than the other element(s)’ (Hwang, 1987: 963).</p><p>The emphasis here is on the strategic value of maintaining the relationship.</p><p>In fact, it is through the practice of doing things together that the normative</p><p>and the ideational structure of global life are engendered (Kavalski, 2013;</p><p>Kritz, 2014). The focus on guanxi suggests that by cherishing the chance of</p><p>interactions (rather than force and/ or work on a relationship) – in its ideal</p><p>form, at least – the Chinese outlook is predisposed to allow for contingency</p><p>to take its course (Chang and Holt, 1991: 54). In this respect, the interactive</p><p>dynamics of communities of practice stimulate new and contextual</p><p>definitions of the ‘common good’. Moreover, in such a dialogical context the</p><p>possibility for constructing ‘new histories’ emerges by altering the suspicion</p><p>and bias from past connections and opening opportunities for new avenues</p><p>for interaction (Qin, 2011). Guanxi therefore spells a longer- term horizon for</p><p>relations than the short- term gains espoused by mainstream IR. The point is</p><p>that neither meaningful relations nor good governance ‘can proceed in haste’;</p><p>both sustainable interactions and their maintenance require interactions that</p><p>‘unfold incrementally and non- dramatically’ (Ling et al, 2016: 115). In this</p><p>process, communities of practice reveal a new way of being present in the</p><p>world through the binding power of deliberate interactions.</p><p>Conclusion: what is ‘post- Western’ about</p><p>post- Western IR?</p><p>This chapter has demonstrated that the promise of a relational mode of</p><p>IR inquiry is considerable. In this respect, the concept of guanxi shifts IR</p><p>74</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>thinking away from a focus on international relations to one premised on</p><p>global relationality. Thus, rather than looking at dyadic sets of relations as</p><p>well as the identities and capacity of individual actors, guanxi inheres in IR</p><p>as webs of figurations intertwined by a conscious and strategic search for</p><p>relations with others. In this respect, actors (and their agency) have effects</p><p>only to the extent that they are in relations with others. Thus, owing to the</p><p>dynamic nature of such interactions, what passes for world order is not only</p><p>constantly changing, but demands ongoing commitment to participating</p><p>in and maintaining these relations. In this respect, the claim here is that the</p><p>relational turn has become a defining feature of the so- called post- Western</p><p>IR theory.</p><p>It seems few today would dispute that the disciplinary inquiry of IR is</p><p>indelibly marked by the ‘colonial signs’ of its Eurocentric</p><p>make- up. Not</p><p>only that, but the ‘apple pie’ flavour that IR acquired in the context of its</p><p>Cold War transformation into an ‘American social science’ seems to have</p><p>made the discipline even more inimical towards encounters with the various</p><p>non- Western others that its outlook consciously occludes (Iriye, 1979;</p><p>Kavalski, 2021b). In an attempt to trouble the juxtapositions of temporal</p><p>and geographical difference that still seem to stump any IR alternative</p><p>prefixed by a ‘non- ’ or a ‘post- ’, this chapter emphasizes the centrality</p><p>of relationality as a distinguishing feature of all such projects. Critical/</p><p>postcolonial/ non- Western/ global IR narratives have difficulty obviating</p><p>the theoretical slippage as a result of which ‘the East’ is unquestionably</p><p>equated with ‘Asia’ and is then assumed to be part of the so- called ‘Rest’</p><p>and ‘non- West’. Equally problematically, ‘Euro- centrism’ is invariably taken</p><p>as a stand- in for ‘West- centrism’, ‘Sino- centrism’ for ‘Chinese hegemony’,</p><p>and ‘post’ for ‘anti’. In this setting, the relationality lens helps outline the</p><p>contested terrain of post- Western IR as a space for dialogical learning, which</p><p>promises a world that is less hegemonic, more democratic, international</p><p>and equitable.</p><p>In particular, such an approach allows us to build solidarity between like-</p><p>minded projects targeting the silencing, hegemony, patriarchy and violence</p><p>of the mainstream by treating them as second- order aspects deriving from a</p><p>first- order problematique – IR’s poignant ontological and epistemic lack of</p><p>relationality (Kurki, 2020). It is the very denial of relationality (a first- order</p><p>issue) that perpetuates the imperial, patriarchal and racist attitudes (second-</p><p>order issues) of IR. It is in this vein that the attack on the latter which so</p><p>much of critical, feminist and postcolonial theorizing undertakes overlooks</p><p>the very condition of its possibility – the lack of relationality in IR. What</p><p>this means is that the IR mainstream has been dominated by an atomistic</p><p>understanding of global life which prioritizes fixed units of analysis (nation</p><p>states) and their discrete dyadic interactions (conflict/ balancing in the</p><p>context of anarchy). Yet, at no point is the option of a sociability infused</p><p>WHAT CAN GUANXI INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BE ABOUT?</p><p>75</p><p>with the contingent opportunities inherent in the encounter with the other</p><p>acknowledged in this narrative; let alone the potential that the phenomena</p><p>and processes animating world affairs are mutually co- constituted in relation</p><p>with one another. Instead, the mainstream of IR envisions global life as a</p><p>domain of disconnected states, infamously imagined as billiard balls – ‘closed,</p><p>impermeable, and sovereign unit[s] , completely separated from all other</p><p>states’ (Wolfers, 1962: 19).</p><p>Positing the existence of atomistic units (or entities) before relations, the</p><p>Eurocentric storytelling of IR asserts that states are almost invariably the</p><p>ontological priors for any kind of theorization. This outlook then facilitates</p><p>the entrenchment of the idea that international politics are almost by default</p><p>anarchical and antagonistic. World affairs are a ‘great game’ for those who</p><p>can make immediate moves to counter their opponents; failure to do so</p><p>makes one simultaneously ‘ineffective and useless’ (Ling et al, 2016: 115).</p><p>In other words, the assumption that relations are self- evidently secondary to</p><p>the primary condition of conflict on the world stage legitimizes the post-</p><p>ontological contention that peaceful coexistence is possible only through</p><p>the complete mastery and subjugation of all forms of otherness (Odysseos,</p><p>2007: xxxi). In particular, the ontological and epistemological openings</p><p>made possible by the encounter with guanxi permit the disclosure of relations</p><p>that fall outside IR’s traditional focus on competition, conflict, cooptation</p><p>and defence.</p><p>A relational IR, which is post- Western in the sense that it does not treat the</p><p>West and the non- West as discrete and disconnected homogeneous opposites,</p><p>but intertwined and mutually constitutive webs of interactions, proposes a</p><p>molecular outlook whose unit of analysis is relations (rather than actors) and</p><p>their multiple triadic dynamics (which open numerous and numinous points</p><p>of and possibilities for interaction). In other words, what makes post- Western</p><p>IR narratives ‘post- Western’ is their emphasis on relationality – namely,</p><p>things in global life are not merely interconnected, but they gain meaning</p><p>and significance within complex webs of entanglements and encounters with</p><p>others. The study can thereby be read as a prolegomenon to a genuinely</p><p>relational IR thinking and practice, one whose attention is not on reifying</p><p>the bulwarks of national sovereignty and quantifying the national interest,</p><p>but rather draws attention to the porousness and unpredictability of global</p><p>life, Western and non- Western (and the messy and contingent intersections</p><p>that permeate and constitute both).</p><p>The emphasis on relationality thereby acts as a reminder that IR</p><p>knowledge, just like any knowledge, is acquired and mediated relationally</p><p>through diverse sets of practices. IR’s denial of ontological relationality</p><p>has its epistemic effects – perhaps most perniciously evidenced by the</p><p>imposition of a canon reproduced around the world so that students can</p><p>contribute to ‘core’ debates, while the inputs of the ‘periphery’ are occluded</p><p>76</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>from the ‘Anglosphere’ of Western IR journals and academia (Vucetic,</p><p>2011; Cho, 2015). Some have labelled this lack of epistemic relationality</p><p>as IR’s ‘castle syndrome’ – rather than engagement with the multiverse</p><p>of global life, proponents of different IR schools engage in defending</p><p>and reinforcing the bulwarks of their analytical castles, while bombarding</p><p>the claims of everybody else (Barkin, 2010). Others have termed it as</p><p>‘returnism’ – IR’s predilection for traditional conceptual signposts that</p><p>provide intellectual comfort zones, disconnected from current realities</p><p>(Heng, 2010). The claim here is that both these dynamics are instances</p><p>of IR’s lack of relationality.</p><p>In other words, one of the post- Western disclosures elicited by the</p><p>encounter with guanxi is that knowledge does not exist in isolation; it is not</p><p>manufactured atomistically and discretely from scratch. Rather, to know one</p><p>thing, one has to know a lot of other things in the context of their mutual</p><p>implication. Ideas – just like life – arise relationally. Concepts have a history</p><p>and cultural specificity; yet, they do not grow in a vacuum but are shaped</p><p>continuously through peregrination, interactions and cross- fertilization.</p><p>A post- Western IR, thereby, acts simultaneously as a reminder about the</p><p>pluriversal world we inhabit and the composite nature of IR’s episteme. Yet,</p><p>the multiplicity presaged by such relationality does not seek to eliminate</p><p>contradictions; instead, it aims to encounter a global life in which ‘many</p><p>worlds fit’ (Conway, 2019: 170; Chen, 2011). In short, a relational IR involves</p><p>utterly otherwise than a neutral, invisible and uncommitted mode of inquiry.</p><p>The epistemic verso of such relational IR is the cultivation of attentiveness to</p><p>the self- organizing, shifting, and historically and geographically contingent</p><p>realities of the global life we inhabit.</p><p>Such attentiveness will undoubtedly make the realms of IR research</p><p>‘messy’, yet would assist with the recovery of a disposition to encounter</p><p>(and respond to) currents, trends and voices that are uncomfortable and</p><p>are not easily digestible by established paradigms. In this respect, ‘China’s</p><p>rise’ is not merely an event circumscribed historically and geographically to</p><p>specific space, place and time; it is also an ongoing dynamic of begetting,</p><p>formation and change produced by processes and forces that seem to</p><p>be polar opposites. The theorization of China’s rise can thereby act as a</p><p>catalyst</p><p>for a critical consciousness and emancipatory praxis that pushes</p><p>IR thinking, feeling, knowledge production, and socially responsible</p><p>action by engaging creatively with the contradictions, challenges and</p><p>opportunities of an entangled and unpredictable global life. Going back</p><p>to Yangyang Cheng’s poignant reflections with which this chapter began,</p><p>the hope is that such relational IR can nurture ‘new ways of speaking’ the</p><p>international, attuned to the polyphonies of languages, experiences and</p><p>knowledges that animate its rhizomatic interactions. The point of such</p><p>a call for relationality is that the explanation and understanding of world</p><p>WHAT CAN GUANXI INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BE ABOUT?</p><p>77</p><p>affairs requires multiple perspectives, voices and points of view, each with</p><p>their ‘own’ agency and capacity for emplotment in the context of global</p><p>life. Thus, engaging with and listening curiously and provocatively to</p><p>the phenomenon of guanxi invokes the complexity of possible worlds</p><p>uncovered by relational IR.</p><p>Acknowledgements</p><p>This chapter was originally published as Emilian Kavalski (2018) ‘Guanxi or</p><p>What is the Chinese for Relational Theory of World Politics’, International</p><p>Relations of the Asia- Pacific, 18(3): 397– 420 (republished by permission of</p><p>Oxford University Press).</p><p>References</p><p>Acharya, A. (2000) ‘Emancipatory IR Theory’ in S. Arnold and J.M. Beier</p><p>(eds), (Dis)Placing Security. Toronto, ON: CISS, pp 1– 18.</p><p>Barbalet, J. 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(2014) ‘Methodology Meets Culture’, International Journal of Cross-</p><p>Cultural Management, 14(1): 27– 46.</p><p>Kurki, M. (2020) International Relations in a Relational Universe. Oxford: Oxford</p><p>University Press.</p><p>Kurki, M. (2021) ‘Relational Revolution and Relationality in IR’, Review</p><p>of International Studies, https:// doi.org/ 10.1017/ S0260210521000127</p><p>Ledeneva, A. (2008) ‘ “Blat” and “guanxi” ’, Comparative Studies in Society</p><p>and History, 50(1): 118– 44.</p><p>Ling, L.H.M. (2014) The Dao of World Politics. London: Routledge.</p><p>Ling, L.H.M., Abdenur, A., Banerjee, P., Kurian, N., Lama, M. and</p><p>Bo, L. (2016) India China: Rethinking Borders and Security. Ann Arbor,</p><p>MI: University of Michigan Press.</p><p>Liu, Q. (2014) ‘Critical Cosmopolitanism’ in C. Mendes (ed), Cultural</p><p>Pluralism. Rio de Janeiro: Academy, pp 119– 44.</p><p>Luo, Y. (1997) ‘Guanxi’, Human Systems Management, 16(1): 43– 51.</p><p>Nordin, A. and Smith, G. (2019) ‘Relating Self and Other’, Cambridge</p><p>Review of International Affairs, 32(5): 636– 53.</p><p>Nordin, A., Smith, G., Jackson, P., Kavalski, E., Nexon, D. and Ling, L.H.M</p><p>(2019) ‘Global Relational Theorizing’, Cambridge Review of International</p><p>Affairs, 32(5): 570– 81.</p><p>the rise of China. At one level, there is no denying that China’s</p><p>rise has been one of the most frequently studied and debated contemporary</p><p>phenomena (Kang, 2007; Lampton, 2008; Kavalski, 2009; Nathan and</p><p>Scobell, 2012; Pan, 2012; Shambaugh, 2013; Christensen, 2015; Mahbubani,</p><p>2020; Breslin, 2021). In the rapidly proliferating literature on China’s rise,</p><p>there has been no shortage of theoretical perspectives being brought to</p><p>2</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>bear on a number of pressing questions: can China rise peacefully? What</p><p>does it mean for global governance and the rules- based liberal order? Will</p><p>it seek regional or even global dominance? And can it avoid the so- called</p><p>Thucydides Trap? But most of these inquiries, instead of allowing for new</p><p>theoretical explorations, are already underpinned by existing theoretical</p><p>assumptions. Although a wide range of IR theories such as realism, liberalism,</p><p>constructivism, power transition theory, and the English School (ES) have</p><p>shed light on China’s rise, their understanding is primarily about applying</p><p>existing theories to a perceived empirical case in order to explain its policy and</p><p>practical implications and/ or to test the validity of those theories. Very rarely</p><p>has China’s rise been treated as an ‘up- stream’, theory- generating event in IR.</p><p>While theory testing and theory generating are not mutually exclusive and</p><p>together they are both essential to theory building, some differences between</p><p>them are nevertheless worth noting here. Theory testing treats the object</p><p>of an empirical study as something that does not fundamentally challenge</p><p>existing theoretical assumptions or frameworks. In this case, China’s rise,</p><p>though remarkable in its own right, is seen as nothing unusual in international</p><p>politics: great powers rise and fall throughout history. As a consequence,</p><p>it can and should be more or less explained with ‘off- the- shelf ’ theories.</p><p>The widespread perception of China’s rise as a challenge to the rules- based</p><p>international order (Johnston, 2019), for example, has even allowed realism</p><p>to undergo a revival (Keohane, 2021: 118).</p><p>On the other hand, theory generating starts with a more open mind</p><p>and focuses on new general theoretical or conceptual potential in a</p><p>significant event or phenomenon. As a theory- generating event, China’s</p><p>rise needs to be seen as something at least partially new, thus demanding</p><p>the development of new conceptual frameworks, theoretical perspectives</p><p>and/ or at least a rethink of ‘old’ ones. A theory- generating event does not</p><p>mean that it would render all existing concepts and theoretical assumptions</p><p>obsolete. Rather, it presents an opportunity for more innovative and</p><p>imaginative theoretical reflection. To treat a potentially theory- generating</p><p>event as simply a normal theory- testing event would have closed off such</p><p>an opportunity.</p><p>We contend that such an opportunity has not been adequately explored in</p><p>the case of China’s rise, which has attracted inadequate attention as a focus</p><p>of debate in the core IR theoretical community. This contributes to the</p><p>neglect of China’s rise as a complex and still evolving global and regional</p><p>phenomenon, which is not just local or ‘uniquely Chinese’, but may reveal</p><p>broader and more theoretically generalizable issues and patterns that cannot</p><p>be satisfactorily understood through existing concepts and theories.</p><p>Animated by and dissatisfied with the puzzling neglect of China’s rise as a</p><p>source for IR theoretical innovation, this edited volume addresses this gap by</p><p>opening possibilities for meaningful dialogue on the theoretical implications</p><p>INTRODUCTION</p><p>3</p><p>of China’s rise (broadly defined) for the study of IR. Some might question</p><p>whether we could really rely on ‘a single- N case’ as the basis of theorizing.</p><p>Our response is that the very perception of China’s rise as a ‘single- N case’</p><p>reflects the continued influence of the Newtonian ontology of things (see</p><p>Chapters 4, 5 and 10) and is part of the reason why theory testing continues</p><p>to dominate the study of China’s rise. In this volume, it is our belief that</p><p>China’s rise represents more than a specific foreign policy challenge or a</p><p>nationally bounded empirical test case for existing IR theories. Though the</p><p>term ‘China’s rise’ may suggest otherwise, its fundamental relationality in</p><p>and with the world means that it is not a single national case to begin with.</p><p>As such, it offers an opportunity for more systematic theorizing to enrich</p><p>and perhaps challenge IR theory (or at least some aspects of it). This is not</p><p>to say that many existing IR theories, such as realism, liberalism, the ES and</p><p>constructivism, will no longer have important things to say about China’s</p><p>international relations. Far from it. Rather, we suggest that the parameters</p><p>of existing IR theories may no longer be adequate to understand many</p><p>changes and complexities associated with this historic event. It is in this</p><p>context that new theorizing is called for at epistemological, ontological</p><p>and/ or even spiritual levels.</p><p>We admit that the challenges facing this enterprise are extremely</p><p>formidable and the goals here still seem highly ambitious. But as James</p><p>Rosenau (1994: 527) notes, ‘Notwithstanding the foregoing difficulties that</p><p>haunt the theoretical enterprise, it remains that we have no choice but to</p><p>undertake it’. While taking up this challenge, we recognize that it cannot</p><p>be satisfactorily undertaken by any single project. On balance, therefore,</p><p>we pitch our contribution here at a necessarily modest level: first, drawing</p><p>attention to this neglected research agenda and creating an opening for</p><p>dialogue and exchange among IR scholars, and second, hoping to offer a</p><p>first cut at theorizing China’s rise beyond IR’s conventional purview.</p><p>China’s rise: a blind spot in IR theorizing</p><p>Buzan and Lawson (2014: 512) observe that ‘most analysis in mainstream</p><p>IR theory is both Western- centric and presentist, by which we mean</p><p>predominantly focused on the 20th century Anglo- American world’ (see</p><p>also Chapter 1 in this volume; unless otherwise specified, throughout this</p><p>book all references to specific chapters refer to chapters in this book).</p><p>China’s rise, an apparently non- Western event, does not seem to register</p><p>as a matter of major theoretical interest. For instance, in the Special Issue</p><p>of European Journal of International Relations on the ‘End of IR Theory’,</p><p>China or China’s rise is mentioned sporadically and in passing by four out</p><p>of the 12 articles (Brown, 2013; Mearsheimer and Walt, 2013; Reus- Smit,</p><p>2013; Tickner, 2013). In one of their occasional references to China, John</p><p>4</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (2013: 448) note that ‘how one thinks</p><p>about dealing with a rising China depends first and foremost on one’s</p><p>broad perspective on world politics’, implying that China’s rise is merely</p><p>an object of analysis by ready- made theories, rather than itself a source for</p><p>theoretical reflection and innovation. In another major theoretical debate –</p><p>‘Emotions and World Politics’ (International Theory, 2014) – China figures</p><p>even less in the discussion. In International Theory (2009– 2021), so far the</p><p>only interdisciplinary journal dedicated to IR theory, 83 articles published</p><p>between 2009 and 2021 contain the word ‘China’, but only eight of them</p><p>briefly mention ‘China’s rise’ or the ‘rise of China’, and none appears to be</p><p>about whether or how China’s rise may be studied as a theory- generating</p><p>event for IR.</p><p>Perhaps a more promising place to look for such research is the debate</p><p>on non- Western IR theory in general (see the Special Issue of International</p><p>Relations of the Asia- Pacific, 2007) and the Chinese School of IR theory</p><p>(Zhang and Chang, 2016) in particular. The former has led to the formation</p><p>of a larger ‘Global IR’ project (Acharya, 2014a; Acharya and Buzan, 2017),</p><p>in which China</p><p>https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210521000127</p><p>80</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>Odysseos, L. (2007) The Subject of Coexistence. 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(2015) ‘Materializing the “Non- Western”: Two Stories of</p><p>Japanese Philosophers on Culture and Politics in the Inter- war Period’,</p><p>Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 28(1): 3– 20.</p><p>https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1937098</p><p>https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210521000322</p><p>WHAT CAN GUANXI INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BE ABOUT?</p><p>81</p><p>Shimizu, K. and Noro, S. (2021) ‘Political Healing and Mahāyāna</p><p>Buddhist Medicine’, Third World Quarterly, https:// doi.org/ 10.1080/</p><p>01436597.2021.1891878</p><p>Tickner, A.B and Querejazu, A. (2021) ‘Weaving Worlds: Cosmopraxis as</p><p>Relational Sensibility’, International Studies Review, 23(2): 391– 408.</p><p>Tong, S. (2006) ‘Chinese Thought and Dialogical Universalism’ in G. Delanty</p><p>(ed), Europe and Asia. London: Routledge, pp 305– 15.</p><p>Trownsell, T.A., Tickner, A.B., Querejazu, A., Shani, G., Shimizu, K. and</p><p>Behera, N.C. 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(2016) Globalization and the Colonial Origins of the Great Divergence.</p><p>Leiden: Brill.</p><p>83</p><p>4</p><p>Friendly Rise? China, the West and</p><p>the Ontology of Relations</p><p>Astrid H.M. Nordin and Graham M. Smith</p><p>Introduction</p><p>Chinese policy makers, scholars and pundits have attempted to ameliorate</p><p>fears about China’s rise by portraying China as a new and friendlier kind of</p><p>great power. It is claimed that this represents a new way of relating which</p><p>transcends problematic Western understandings of self– other relations, and</p><p>their tendency to slip into domination and enmity. Claims along such lines</p><p>can be seen in President Xi Jinping’s official discourse, which portrays the</p><p>Chinese nation as culturally predisposed to friendly, peaceful and harmonious</p><p>behaviour abroad, and which lists friendship as one of 12 key terms for his</p><p>socialist ‘core value system’ at home (People’s Daily Online, 2014; Xi, 2014).</p><p>These claims have been illustrated in various international nation- branding</p><p>events, often through the Confucian adage that ‘it is glorious to receive</p><p>friends from afar’ (Callahan, 2010: 2). They have also been an important</p><p>part of emerging debates over a possible Chinese School of International</p><p>Relations (IR) (Noesselt, 2015). Famously, Zhao Tingyang claims that</p><p>Chinese traditions offer a ‘Chinese ontology, the ontology of relations,</p><p>instead of the western ontology of things’, which enables the peaceful</p><p>transformation of enemies into friends (Zhao, 2006: 33, 34; for a discussion,</p><p>see Nordin, 2016a, 2016b), and researchers discuss ‘China’s self- perceived</p><p>role of a friend versus the (often Western) exploiter’ (Shih and Yin, 2013: 81).</p><p>Taking such use of the term ‘friendship’ as a point of departure, this chapter</p><p>suggests that a reintroduction of friendship to IR can and should be a key</p><p>contribution brought about by</p><p>the increasing influence of Chinese politics</p><p>and scholarship in international relations. Rather than merely denoting</p><p>a personal and private relationship, friendship denotes a way of thinking</p><p>about the co- constitution of self with other, and theorizes the dynamics of</p><p>84</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>such co- foundation. This chapter brings together and juxtaposes a number</p><p>of ways of thinking through the language of ‘friendship’ and analyses the</p><p>implications of different theorizations for thinking about China’s rise and</p><p>world relations.</p><p>The first section of the chapter explains how the recent theorizations</p><p>of friendship in IR that draw on Chinese thought indeed constitute a re-</p><p>introduction. It draws a sketch of how friendship was a central political</p><p>category for virtue cultivation and co- constitution in both Chinese and</p><p>European ancient traditions but was transformed under the modern state</p><p>system into overarching and general forms of community such as citizenship</p><p>and nationality. Importantly, this public friendship was bound to the idea of</p><p>enmity and its logic of Us versus Them.</p><p>The second section develops the argument that the discipline of IR has</p><p>been shaped by a form of thinking which privileges ‘things’ over ‘relations’</p><p>(Jackson and Nexon, 1999; Nordin and Smith, 2019). We show how even</p><p>some theoretical approaches to IR that aver to focus on relations come to</p><p>fall back on an ontology of things. In the process, the central question of</p><p>friendship – the question of what it means to become with others, and what</p><p>it means to share and shape a world with others – has been lost to much</p><p>analysis in IR.</p><p>The third section suggests that recovering friendship enables a recast</p><p>IR based instead on ‘relational ontologies’. We argue that contemporary</p><p>developments of traditional Chinese thought are particularly significant for</p><p>IR debates because they indicate a co- constitutive self– other relationship</p><p>which does not emphasize anxiety and fear of difference or of misrecognition.</p><p>Finally, we conclude that the real divide in understandings of friendship and</p><p>IR is not between China and the West (nor, for that matter, between ancient</p><p>and modern). Instead, we contrast the role of friendship in the ontology of</p><p>things on the one hand, and relational ontologies on the other. The first</p><p>ontology tends to reproduce an essentialist self– other dichotomy and ossifies</p><p>friendship as a role or attribute; the second tends to allow for transformation</p><p>and so is open to the co- constitutive dynamics suggested by friendship. Paying</p><p>attention to current Chinese IR theory that emphasizes relationships and guanxi</p><p>(social connections), friendship can contribute to the development of such IR</p><p>thinking and move beyond a focus on ossified forms of friendship and enmity</p><p>centred on the anxious self. In so doing, this chapter shows that an explicit</p><p>focus on friendship in IR, as offered by current Chinese theorizations, adds</p><p>a distinct and valuable vantage point on relationality.</p><p>Remembering friendship: ancient and modern</p><p>Standard accounts of the vocabulary of politics and IR treat the inclusion</p><p>of ‘friendship’ in their lexicon as somewhat of a novelty. Instead, they</p><p>FRIENDLY RISE?</p><p>85</p><p>centre on the state, power, sovereignty, citizens, nations and peoples. While</p><p>many accept that states and nations can have enemies, there is much wider</p><p>scepticism about the possibilities for friendship (for example Keller, 2009;</p><p>cf. Koschut and Oelsner, 2014: 6– 8). Nevertheless, friendship was a central</p><p>political category for both European ancients like Plato (Price, 1989) and the</p><p>ancient Chinese tradition whose principal source is the thought of Confucius</p><p>and his heirs (Analects, 1940: 1.8, 9.25, 19.3; Kutcher, 2000: 1615– 16).</p><p>Incongruous though this might seem to many contemporary students of IR,</p><p>it was not simply that the ancients fused what scholars might currently be</p><p>inclined to treat separately: ethics and politics, the personal and the public.</p><p>Instead, ancient theorizations constructed a concept of friendship which</p><p>was just as central to theorizing political life as ‘justice’ or ‘equality’ in Greek</p><p>tradition, and ‘unity’ or ‘harmony’ in Chinese tradition. Thus, although</p><p>there are differences between seminal accounts of friendship in Chinese and</p><p>European thought, both traditions understood friendship as an important</p><p>connector of politics, ethics and human flourishing.</p><p>Ancients in both Greek and Chinese traditions were concerned that one</p><p>should have the right kind of friends. Although they were often candid about</p><p>the emotional, material and social advantages expected from friendship,</p><p>these were not necessarily the principal reason for friendship. Notably, while</p><p>affection might emerge, praiseworthy friends were to be chosen not so</p><p>much for their particularity, but because they provided moral nourishment</p><p>(Hall and Ames, 1998: 254– 69). In these accounts, the key usefulness of</p><p>the friend was to transform the self into something new and better, with</p><p>more virtuous desires, which would in turn lead to harmony and stability</p><p>in the state. As such, Confucian friendship could and should sustain moral</p><p>growth in support of family– state hierarchies. Confucian thought took five</p><p>key relationships as its foundation, one of which was that between friends</p><p>(you 友). The other four relationships denoted mutual obligation between</p><p>father and son, ruler and minister, husband and wife, and older and younger</p><p>brother. If everybody fulfilled their role in these relationships, families would</p><p>be stable, harmonious and productive of the good subjects that would ensure</p><p>stability and harmony for the state. Friendship should be supportive of the</p><p>other four relationships, where the good friend might both offer respite</p><p>from their demands, and act as a virtuous example to emulate in order to</p><p>become a better son, a better official and a better subject (Kutcher, 2000).</p><p>The importance of the friend as a virtuous example to emulate is so strong</p><p>that Confucius repeatedly urges: ‘Do not have as a friend anyone who is not</p><p>as good as you are’ (Analects, 1940: 1.8, 9.25). Put differently, although one</p><p>should be benevolent to those less virtuous than oneself, it is only one’s betters</p><p>who support one’s self- improvement who can be considered true friends.</p><p>These ancient pictures of friendship contrast with views that have become</p><p>dominant after the advent of the nation state. Paradigmatically, Carl Schmitt</p><p>86</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>identifies the friend and enemy distinction as the defining feature of the</p><p>political, yet he is surprisingly silent on what ‘friendship’ is. When Schmitt</p><p>does elaborate on the meaning of friendship it is cashed out in relation to</p><p>the homogeneous identity of a people, where a people’s consciousness of</p><p>its own identity as a nation means ‘it has the capacity to distinguish friend</p><p>and enemy’ (Schmitt, 2008: 247). Whereas the ancient literature is able to</p><p>theorize political forms of friendship without reference to enmity, Schmitt</p><p>appears unable (or unwilling) to do so. The definitions of enemy and friend</p><p>are tied together, linked to the possibility of killing and being killed, and</p><p>seemingly incapable of transformation (Schmitt, 1996: 26– 7, 37, 45– 6). In</p><p>many ways, Schmitt’s thought is typical of the fate of friendship in the modern</p><p>state system, a fate which understands friendship as the less significant other</p><p>of enmity and ossifies both categories.</p><p>It is perhaps not surprising that this view of friendship is paralleled in Mao</p><p>Zedong’s thought insofar as it embraces the state. Fairly soon after China’s</p><p>integration into the modern interstate system, society became dominated</p><p>by Mao’s interpretation of Marxism- Leninism, which challenged the</p><p>ancient understanding of friendship and to a large extent broke away from</p><p>Confucian thinking (Kam, 1980). The fundamental importance of friendship</p><p>can nonetheless be seen to have remained, albeit in a new guise. In Mao’s</p><p>China this new notion of friendship took a domestic and an external form.</p><p>Domestically, friendship cast the highest friend as the selfless communist</p><p>comrade (tongzhi 同志). The external form developed in the international</p><p>arena was ‘foreign- friendship’ (youyi 友谊). These Maoist terms captured</p><p>the terrain of friendship for the communist cause and realigned it from</p><p>emphasizing harmony to a more confrontational polemicization. It no longer</p><p>focused on mutually constituting elements in a harmoniously transforming</p><p>relationship (as in Confucianism) but based its dialectic on dichotomized</p><p>units that clashed in painful revolutions to push history forwards. Under</p><p>Mao, such dichotomized entities included the ‘friend’ and the ‘enemy’. As</p><p>Mao posed the question:</p><p>Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the</p><p>first importance for the revolution. … To ensure that we will definitely</p><p>achieve success in our revolution and will not lead the masses astray, we</p><p>must pay attention to uniting with our real friends in order to attack</p><p>our real enemies. (Mao, 1961: 13)</p><p>This snapshot of friendship in ancient and then modern state- centric</p><p>thought illustrates a displacement of friendship and what it originally</p><p>represented: profound relationality and co- constitution of self and other.</p><p>The effects of this displacement are reflected in contemporary thought about</p><p>politics and IR. In ancient thought, friendship had a structuring role for</p><p>FRIENDLY RISE?</p><p>87</p><p>individuals and political systems. Connected to virtue, it was a means by</p><p>which political life could be stabilized and made harmonious. In modern</p><p>politics, friendship is abstracted and put to work by the state in relations</p><p>of group belonging such as comradeship and nationality. Friendship is</p><p>formulated as an Us in opposition to a Them; a Self opposed to Others. This</p><p>suggests a profound shift in thinking about politics, which turns attention</p><p>away from the possibility of relational production, reconciliation and even</p><p>a combination of distinctive and contrasting components. Instead, this shift</p><p>emphasizes the assertion and preservation (or annihilation) of distinct and</p><p>antagonistically opposed things.</p><p>International Relations and the ‘ontology of things’</p><p>If it is the case that the state system has marginalized friendship as a concern</p><p>with co- constitutive self– other relations from the political, how is this more</p><p>broadly reflected in IR? This section revisits the ontological assumptions of</p><p>‘mainstream IR’, arguing that much contemporary IR scholarship rests not</p><p>on an ontological focus on relations, but on an ‘ontology of things’, which</p><p>has marginalized friendship. Surprisingly, this is true not only of Realism</p><p>and Liberalism, but also of Wendtian Constructivism, where discussions of</p><p>friendship explicitly appear.</p><p>Common stories about the development of IR depict a Eurocentric</p><p>discipline, where varieties of Realism, Liberalism and constructivism are</p><p>often said to be ‘mainstream’. Realism emerged near the conception of the</p><p>discipline of IR, as it is commonly rehearsed, and so Realism set the tone for</p><p>both the ontological assumptions of IR and its lexicon. Its vocabulary is more</p><p>than a choice of words; it identifies the ‘things’ of IR. Key within this lexicon</p><p>are ‘sovereignty’, ‘power’, ‘state’ and ‘nation’. Realists tend to view the</p><p>international state system in terms of ‘anarchy’ constituted by sovereign states,</p><p>seeking survival and locked into a ‘security dilemma’ as a result (Morgenthau,</p><p>1972; Mearsheimer, 1990: 5– 56). From its imagined inception, then, IR</p><p>was infused with an ontology of things (see also Chapter 10). The state was</p><p>taken as the object of IR and assumed to be a self- contained, independent</p><p>and unchanging unit. This view is exemplified by Waltz when he writes that</p><p>states ‘are unitary actors who, at a minimum, seek their own preservation</p><p>and, at a maximum, drive for universal domination’ (Waltz, 1979: 118).</p><p>Realism has adapted and transformed, and has remained remarkably</p><p>influential. As a result, even theories that offer an alternative approach or</p><p>methodology for understanding the international system have often accepted</p><p>the lexicon of Realism and its ontology of things. For example, most liberals</p><p>accept the basic realist assumptions concerning the state and the basic rules</p><p>of the game, in terms of the wider ontology (Keohane, 1993: 272; Milner,</p><p>1993: 9; Jervis, 1999: 43– 4). Of course, liberals differ from realists by pointing</p><p>88</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>to the role of norms and actors other than the state. However, by doing so</p><p>they merely stress an additional consideration to that of the state; they do</p><p>not seriously challenge its importance or its ‘thingness’. As Robert Jervis</p><p>(1999: 45) has observed, what differs is the level of focus. Liberals and realists</p><p>have conducted a lively debate but they have been able to do so precisely</p><p>because they share a lexicon and an ontology. Having identified their objects</p><p>of study, they are only then concerned to theorize their interaction. In the</p><p>words of Erik Ringmar (1996: 441, emphasis in the original), ‘the state is</p><p>given exogenously to the analysis … and hence endowed with something akin</p><p>to a transcendental ontological status’. States are treated as pre- constituted</p><p>calculating machines much in the same way that Hobbes theorizes human</p><p>beings (Ringmar, 1996: 447). Factored out of IR is precisely the idea that</p><p>the units in question can be transformed – moreover, constituted – through</p><p>their interaction.</p><p>If Realism and Liberalism share a core set of assumptions (and ontology of</p><p>things), constructivism appears to offer something new. Indeed, at first blush</p><p>constructivism appears to move away from the assumptions that underpin</p><p>debate between realists and liberals, and to offer an alternative ontology.</p><p>Here Alexander Wendt’s 1999 book Social Theory of International Politics is</p><p>paradigmatic. In this book, constructivism is not a theory of IR, but a way of</p><p>approaching ontology (Wendt, 1999: 7). Wendt’s purpose is not to challenge</p><p>realist and liberal use of ‘the state’, but to confront how this is understood</p><p>ontologically (Wendt, 1999: 1). For Wendt, state behaviour does not depend</p><p>on hard structural facts relating to ‘anarchy’ or fixed intentions (as realists and</p><p>liberals might be inclined to think), but on how roles and identity are formed</p><p>and maintained by interaction with others (Wendt, 1999: 257). Thus, Wendt’s</p><p>point is that (contra realists) state behaviour is determined not by anarchy,</p><p>but by how states identify themselves and others. This identity formation</p><p>is relational. As Wendt writes: ‘What this means is that in initially forming</p><p>shared ideas about Self and Other through a learning process, and then in</p><p>subsequently reinforcing those ideas casually through repeated interaction,</p><p>Ego and Alter are at each stage jointly defining who each of them is’ (Wendt,</p><p>1999: 335). Yet, despite appearing to offer an alternative to the ‘ontology of</p><p>things’, Wendt’s theory of international politics falls back on it. Ironically,</p><p>the feature of Wendt’s social constructivism which connects it squarely to</p><p>an ontology of things is precisely the one which suggests his thought might</p><p>exemplify a relational ontology: his discussion of the social construction of</p><p>‘the identities and interests of purposive actors’ (Wendt, 1999: 1), and in</p><p>particular his use of the terms ‘Self ’ and ‘Other’. Wendt’s terms are little</p><p>more than placeholders for what he must assume, but not theorize.</p><p>This is best illustrated by comparing Wendt’s thought to other traditions</p><p>that also employ these terms, not least feminism, postcolonialism and post-</p><p>structuralism. In these traditions, ideas of Self and Other are drawn from a</p><p>FRIENDLY RISE?</p><p>89</p><p>wider philosophical debate focused on the alterity of Self and Other. These</p><p>traditions</p><p>also point to the fluid and even contradictory meaning of the Self.</p><p>By contrast, while Wendt makes the rather strong claim that the state is a</p><p>kind of person, he does not spend much time thinking about the tensions</p><p>inherent in the notion of personhood itself. While real persons can have a</p><p>range of relationships and roles, Wendt limits these to three in his cultures</p><p>of anarchy: enmity, rivalry and friendship. These cultures allow only a rather</p><p>limited and static view of the relationship of friendship. Indeed, as Wendt</p><p>claims, it is not a relationship but a role. Wendt uses the role of the president</p><p>of the United States as an illustration of what such roles mean: irrespective</p><p>of the person who fills this role, qua president that person can only act in</p><p>certain prescribed ways (Wendt, 1999: 258– 9). Similarly, in Wendt’s world,</p><p>friends must rehearse their friendship in a narrowly scripted way. Wendt’s</p><p>limitation of the possible relationships that a state as person can have, and in</p><p>particular his limitations of the transformative nature of friendship, does not</p><p>indicate a relational ontology, but an ontology of things. The state’s relations</p><p>are not transformative of Self and Other. Although the roles that states adopt</p><p>can change their interests, the roles themselves are fixed.</p><p>The consequences of this identity fixing become especially evident when</p><p>Wendt conflates Self and Other with Ego and Alter. These terms carry</p><p>different connotations. While self and other (and especially Self and Other)</p><p>can indicate radical difference or alterity, Ego and Alter are, in fact, a linked</p><p>pair. In Latin, Ego denotes I, we, myself and us, whereas Alter does not mean</p><p>Other in the strong sense that links it to difference, strangeness and alterity,</p><p>but the other of two, the second, the other one. Thus the idiom alter ego: the</p><p>other, which is linked to the first I and has identity with it.</p><p>Thus, although Wendt talks about a constitutive relation between self</p><p>and other, the other encountered in this relationship is really a form of self.</p><p>Wendt’s three cultures of anarchy do not depend on difference between</p><p>actors, but on what they share. The only real encounter of difference in his</p><p>book (between self and other, rather than alter and ego) is that of Cortés and</p><p>Montezuma (Wendt, 1999: 158). This encounter is telling as it exemplifies</p><p>exactly what Wendt cannot theorize with his view of ‘relations’. The</p><p>encounter between Cortés and Montezuma is a real encounter between</p><p>Self and Other. The two are alien to each other; they do not fit into one</p><p>another’s script. By using this encounter to illustrate the claim that culture</p><p>needs to be shared, Wendt betrays the fact that such shared culture depends</p><p>on a relation of self– self, not Self– Other. Furthermore, what the Self and</p><p>Other are in Wendt’s thought remains ‘fixed’ (at least at the level of his</p><p>analysis). What is transformed is not the self or the state (the ontologically</p><p>pre- existing things) but the identity, intentions and behaviour of those units.</p><p>Identity is central and possible precisely because in others the self sees not</p><p>alterity and difference, but an Alter Ego.</p><p>90</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>From this discussion of Realism, Liberalism and constructivism it is</p><p>clear that even accounts that have tried to theorize the relationships of IR,</p><p>including friendship, have tended to fall back on an ontology of things. In</p><p>doing so, they have failed to account for states as embroiled in complex</p><p>processes of becoming with others. In this way, much IR literature fails to</p><p>adequately engage with the central questions raised by friendship, questions</p><p>concerned with the co- constitution of self and other. Nevertheless, friendship</p><p>persists in IR as an intellectual space or question in need of theorization.</p><p>International Relations and the ‘ontology of</p><p>relations’: Qin, Berenskötter and Ling</p><p>We are now in a position to consider the contribution of Chinese tradition</p><p>to the debates about ontology and self– other relations in IR. In what follows</p><p>we show how Daoist dialectics can complement the ‘ontology of things’,</p><p>which has stressed the conflictual incompatibility of Self and Other. The</p><p>focus on relational ontologies in recent Chinese thought provides a platform</p><p>to reintroduce friendship to the IR discipline. Such reintroduction refocuses</p><p>not only on relations, but on the very possibilities of thinking Self with Other.</p><p>We develop this line of thought by discussing friendship and relationality in</p><p>three key theorists from across the discipline: Qin Yaqing, Felix Berenskötter</p><p>and L.H.M. Ling. Qin argues that guanxi relations (关系) should be the</p><p>hard core of a Chinese IR theory and uses a Daoist ‘Chinese dialectic’ to</p><p>overcome what he sees as the conflictual understanding of dialectic in the</p><p>West. Such a dialectic denies dichotomy and suggests mutual structuring.</p><p>Berenskötter is also concerned to overcome the dichotomy of self– other</p><p>and suggests friendship can tame the ontological anxiety of the state. Such a</p><p>relation accepts, but reconciles, difference. Finally, Ling develops relationality</p><p>through Daoist dialectics. Rather than separate self and other, and attend to</p><p>the anxiety induced by this separation, Ling points to the co- dependency</p><p>and intermingling of self with other.</p><p>Qin: guanxi (关系) and dialectics</p><p>A proponent of a ‘Chinese school’ of IR theory, Qin Yaqing has been key</p><p>to refocusing relationality in IR. Qin argues that the basis for Western IR</p><p>theory is ‘individuality’, while the Chinese model is focused on ‘relationality’,</p><p>upon which he proposes a ‘relational theory of world politics’ (2009: 5;</p><p>2016; 2017; 2018). Furthermore, Qin (2009: 5) suggests, ‘mainstream</p><p>International Relations theories that have arisen in the past thirty years …</p><p>have all missed an important dimension, i.e., the study of processes in the</p><p>international system and of relational complexity in international society’.</p><p>He draws on sociologist Fei Xiaotong, who famously argues that ‘Western</p><p>FRIENDLY RISE?</p><p>91</p><p>society’ is based on independent individuality, like bundles of rice straw</p><p>tied together by social contract and institutions. ‘Chinese society’ is instead</p><p>like the continuous circles that ripple outwards from a pebble dropped on</p><p>the surface of water. The ripples spread social relations and each circle is</p><p>connected in one way or another (Fei, 2007; see Qin, 2009: 6).</p><p>Qin emphasizes friendship guanxi (关系) in his development of Chinese</p><p>relational ontology. In contrast to sociological accounts which focus on</p><p>guanxi’s role in support networks and welfare provision, or its role in</p><p>diplomacy creating friendly ‘feeling’ (ganqing 感情) between peoples,</p><p>which can help them develop a guanxi relationship (Brady, 2003: 15), Qin</p><p>(2005a, 2009) argues that guanxi should form the ‘hard core’ of a Chinese</p><p>IR theory. He focuses on guanxi as an ontological assumption of IR which</p><p>differs from ‘Western’ interpretations, as embodied in theories like structural</p><p>Realism, Neoliberal institutionalism, and structural constructivism (Qin,</p><p>2005b, 2009: 5). Qin argues that taking relations as the focal point of IR</p><p>steers away from understandings of relations between states that start with</p><p>state units or individuals and conceive of their relations as secondary. In</p><p>Qin’s view, a reliance on guanxi means Chinese people have a distinct and</p><p>geo- culturally determined way of thinking about relations between peoples,</p><p>which is different from Western thinking. Whereas in European social science</p><p>‘rationality became the dominant word’, in Chinese thought the counterpart</p><p>is ‘relationality’ (Qin, 2009: 5).</p><p>In his account of guanxi relationality, Qin takes processes and agents to be</p><p>symbiotic and ‘inter- constitutive’ in an intermingled practice of socialization.</p><p>There can be no one- way causality between the two because neither precedes</p><p>the other and neither is external to the other (Qin, 2009: 9; 2016: 39).</p><p>Qin illustrates these relations through the yin- yang symbol that is common</p><p>to explaining Daoist thought. This symbol consists of a black and a white</p><p>half that together form a ‘harmonious and holistic’ circle (Qin, 2009: 9;</p><p>2016: 39) (see Figure 4.1). The circle does not exist without the halves; the</p><p>halves cannot form a shape without the circle. In this way, ‘Yin, yang, and</p><p>the circle are in and of one simultaneously’ (Qin, 2009: 9). The relationship</p><p>between agents and process must therefore be interpreted in terms of circular</p><p>constitution, rather than linear causality.</p><p>Qin further explains this in terms of what he calls a ‘Chinese dialectic’</p><p>of change and inclusiveness, which he contrasts with a ‘Hegelian dialectic’</p><p>(Qin, 2009: 10; 2016: 39). In his view, the ‘Western way of thinking’</p><p>focuses on the independent entity and tends to assume discreteness (Qin,</p><p>2009: 10; 2016: 39). On its dichotomizing understanding, A can never be</p><p>non- A, because the two have essentially different properties. In contrast, in</p><p>Qin’s Chinese dialectic, A can be non- A or include non- A; it is inclusive</p><p>and puts emphasis on change. On this understanding, there can be no social</p><p>actors that pre- exist social relations and process. Moreover, the processes of</p><p>92</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>relationships transform both the behaviour and the essential properties of</p><p>the actors involved. A can transform non- A or be transformed into non- A.</p><p>In contrast to Qin’s reading of the Hegelian dialectic, where thesis clashes</p><p>with anti- thesis, in Chinese dialectics, thesis and antithesis complement one</p><p>another to make a harmonious whole. In this way, yin– yang relationality</p><p>‘denies the dichotomously structured concept of “thesis vs. anti- thesis” or</p><p>“us vs. them.” ’ (Qin, 2016: 40).</p><p>In recent writing Qin highlights the importance of friendship as a neglected</p><p>kind of relationship in IR, with reference to its theorization by Felix</p><p>Berenskötter (Qin, 2016: 37). Although Qin does not discuss Berenskötter</p><p>other than to underline the importance of friendship, dwelling on it here</p><p>can bring out the distinct contribution of relational ontologies that draw</p><p>on Chinese thought to the broader discussion of this topic.</p><p>Berenskötter: friendship and anxiety</p><p>Berenskötter, like Qin, sees limitations in an ontology that assumes ‘the</p><p>individual (state) as an autonomy- seeking entity’ common to mainstream</p><p>Western IR (Berenskötter, 2007: 653). Berenskötter draws on Heidegger</p><p>to advocate an ‘evolutionary ontology of the state as something which is</p><p>neither static nor ever complete but a work in progress, something always</p><p>in the process of becoming’ (Berenskötter, 2007: 655). Berenskötter draws</p><p>Figure 4.1: Yin- yang</p><p>FRIENDLY RISE?</p><p>93</p><p>on feminism, post- structuralism, and other European thought to propose</p><p>that states are not primarily concerned about other states that threaten</p><p>their survival (as Realists, for example, might have it), but rather about</p><p>uncertainty as such (Berenskötter, 2007: 655). Anxiety about uncertainty</p><p>and incompleteness provides ‘the foundational sentiment defining the human</p><p>condition’ (Berenskötter, 2007: 655). It is because of such fundamental</p><p>anxiety that people and states are said to ‘look for what Anthony Giddens calls</p><p>“anxiety- controlling mechanisms” employed to gain “ontological security”,</p><p>or a stable sense of Self ’ (Berenskötter, 2007: 656). States, on his view, seek</p><p>friendship to control anxiety (Berenskötter, 2007: 656). Berenskötter bases</p><p>his understanding of friendship on that of Aristotle and highlights a number</p><p>of features that we suggest Aristotle’s account has in common with that of</p><p>Confucius: that true friends share a common goal of virtue, that such virtue</p><p>is obtainable primarily through activity with virtuous friends, and that this</p><p>process is what can lead to harmony (Berenskötter, 2007: 664– 8).</p><p>However, Berenskötter’s friendship is not simply rooted in a sense of group</p><p>membership or identification with humanity in general. Part of friendship’s</p><p>ability to control anxiety stems from its capacity to ‘sustain the individual’s</p><p>sense of self by treating [it] particularistically’ (Berenskötter, 2007: 664).</p><p>A similar concern with particularity or alterity has led philosophers such as</p><p>Derrida to worry that Aristotle’s understanding of friendship as an extension</p><p>of self- love collapses the differentiation between self and other, and therefore</p><p>negates the very possibility of a friendship relation in the first place (Derrida,</p><p>1997: 11; Berenskötter, 2007: 667). Here, the worry is that understanding</p><p>the friend as ‘another Self ’, as Aristotle does, makes it a narcissistic extension</p><p>of that Self, and therefore treats it as derivative. In this sense, the hierarchy</p><p>of the ‘total’ construct obliterates or ignores difference. If we follow Derrida</p><p>and understand politics to be made possible by a plurality of being, or better</p><p>perhaps of becoming, this merging of selves would make friendship apolitical.</p><p>Therefore, Berenskötter notes, “in order to conceptualize friendship as a</p><p>relationship in which politics occurs, friendship relations must allow for</p><p>heterogeneity and be conceived ‘through a philosophy of difference so as</p><p>to be rendered politically relevant’ ” (Berenskötter, 2007: 668).</p><p>The tendency to construct difference negatively, which Derrida identifies</p><p>in Aristotle’s friendship, is sometimes claimed to be a wider feature of</p><p>‘Western’ language or thought. Some have also claimed that it is Derrida’s</p><p>deconstructive reading of Western thought that creates the hierarchical and</p><p>totalizing understanding of difference (Massey, 2005: 49– 54). Berenskötter’s</p><p>reading of friendship, in Aristotle and in IR more generally, also centres</p><p>on concerns with the individual’s sense of particularity and self and the</p><p>anxiety that stems from it. He is not alone in such a focus, which regularly</p><p>occurs in literatures interested in ontological security, including those that</p><p>focus on China (Pan, 2014: 455– 6; Gustavsson, 2016). In contrast to those</p><p>94</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>who understand this type of ontological anxiety to be a feature of Western</p><p>thought, Chih- yu Shih argues that one of the things that distinguishes the</p><p>Chinese relational turn in IR is that it concerns anxiety rather than passion.</p><p>He sees in both ‘China’ and ‘the West’ a ‘general feeling of anxiety ingrained</p><p>in relationality’, which can be calmed when positive feelings in relationships</p><p>provide individualized and mutually assuring recognition (Shih, 2016).</p><p>Ling: the intimacy of ‘self and other’, and the possibility of multiple worlds</p><p>Both Qin and Berenskötter link relationality and friendship to questions of</p><p>the co- construction and dependence of self and other. Berenskötter seeks</p><p>to show how friendship can allay a state’s anxiety as it seeks recognition of</p><p>its self from others. Qin develops his notion of relationality through Daoist</p><p>yin- yang dialectics, which he nationalizes as ‘Chinese’ dialectics. For him</p><p>the issue is not so much reconciling self and other, but realizing that self</p><p>and other are inter- constitutive. Thus, although Berenskötter and Qin agree</p><p>about the co- constitution of self and other, they place different importance</p><p>on the origin and permanence of antagonism between self and other. For</p><p>Berenskötter anxiety appears to be a permanent ontological fact of self– other</p><p>relations. It can be tamed, but not eradicated. In contrast, Qin sees no such</p><p>tension as ontologically foundational. However, this also indicates another</p><p>contrast. Berenskötter’s Heideggerian self and other have the potential to be</p><p>radically different, whereas Qin’s Wendtian foundation attenuates difference.</p><p>A similar understanding of yin– yang relationality is also at the root of</p><p>L.H.M. Ling’s ‘worldism’. Ling critiques what she calls ‘Westphalia World’,</p><p>the common understanding or hegemonic vision of IR that includes</p><p>the</p><p>‘mainstream approaches’ that we have shown to be characterized by an</p><p>ontology of things. Ling shows how this view and its ontology ‘perpetrates</p><p>a profound violence’ by denying its reliance on those it excludes, as well as</p><p>their knowledges and ways of knowing, what she calls ‘Multiple Worlds’.</p><p>Ling also reacts against Wendt’s claim that first encounters like those between</p><p>Cortés and Montezuma led to an accretion of culture at the systemic level,</p><p>leaving the enemy, the rival and the friend as the only roles available to</p><p>others, locking out any other considerations of relations among worlds (Ling,</p><p>2014: 30). As a result of such an ontology of things, Ling describes how a</p><p>‘ “postcolonial anxiety” festers in Multiple Worlds that, in turn, aggravates</p><p>a “colonial anxiety” in Westphalia World’ (Ling, 2014: 3). This leads to a</p><p>nihilistic logic where the lives of others need to be forfeited in order to</p><p>save one’s own.</p><p>Ling offers an alternative to that violent and anxious worldview in the</p><p>form of a Daoist dialectic similar to Qin’s. Ling writes that in such a Daoist</p><p>dialectic the ‘complementarities (yin) prevail despite the contradictions</p><p>(yang) between and within the polarities. Nothing remains static or the same’</p><p>FRIENDLY RISE?</p><p>95</p><p>(Ling, 2014: 15). This worldview strives to re- centre contributions to world</p><p>politics that have been marginalized from it, and to conceptualize these as</p><p>having ontological parity with Westphalia world. It is thus a response to the</p><p>negative spiral of violence and anxiety in the relation between Westphalia</p><p>World and Multiple Worlds:</p><p>A dao of world politics propels us from this dilemma. In recognising</p><p>the ontological parity of things, a post- Westphalian IR experiences</p><p>the constant potential of creative transformations due to the mutual</p><p>interactions that transpire, especially between opposites. Multiplicity and</p><p>difference manifest, enacted by local agents and their transformations</p><p>of knowledge. (Ling, 2014: 3)</p><p>In this way, and in contrast to Wendt’s account of relations, which falls back</p><p>on an ontology of things, this worldview emphasizes a recognition of the</p><p>complexity of the self, which includes traces or elements of the other in the</p><p>self. Intimacy, rather than autonomy, marks its condition (Ling, 2014: 12).</p><p>However, the point is not to replace Westphalia World with Multiple Worlds,</p><p>just as the point is not for the ontology of things to be superseded by relational</p><p>ontologies. Rather, the Daoist dialectic urges us to move closer towards</p><p>balance and engagement. In Ling’s terms, ‘fortified with Daoist dialectics,</p><p>worldism re- visibilises Multiple Worlds in relation to one another as well</p><p>as to Westphalia World’ (Ling, 2014: 18; emphasis in the original). Equally,</p><p>we might say that it makes multiple relational ontologies visible again, both</p><p>in relation to one another and in relation to the ontology of things. The</p><p>area of intersection between different ontologies forms a dialogical space.</p><p>However, unlike the Socratic dialogue on friendship, Daoist dialectics do</p><p>not presuppose that there is a stable and discoverable truth independent of</p><p>human perspectives (Ling, 2014: 66).</p><p>Ling’s insistence on this contrapuntuality between West and Rest, Self and</p><p>Other, ‘to jointly produce the complicities that endure despite and sometimes</p><p>because of the mutual conflicts that tear them apart’, adds an important</p><p>emphasis to Qin’s account (Ling, 2014: 45). Qin is clearly aware that the</p><p>relational ontology he advocates is not uniquely Chinese, that it has both</p><p>ancient and contemporary parallels in Europe and elsewhere. Our previous</p><p>discussions of friendship have highlighted further commonalities between</p><p>Confucian and ancient Greek understandings of friendship in their focus</p><p>on friendship as a relationship of learning for the purpose of developing</p><p>virtue. Ling’s efforts to articulate her ‘Multiple Worlds’ without falling</p><p>back on dichotomizations of ‘the West’ and ‘China’ (or ‘the Rest’) helps to</p><p>further underscore that the ‘Chinese view’ that Qin describes need not be</p><p>exoticized as a geo- culturally specific example. On the contrary, it might</p><p>even be that contemporary IR theories which have assumed an ontology</p><p>96</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>of things and marginalized friendship relations should be considered to be</p><p>a highly specific exception to the more general global and historical trend.</p><p>Furthermore, the move away from a focus on individuality in Qin’s yin-</p><p>yang processual constructivism and Ling’s Daoist dialectic decentres the prior</p><p>focus on anxiety. We are not suggesting that Berenskötter, Shih and others</p><p>are wrong in observing existing anxiety. We are, however, suggesting that</p><p>these emotions are as constructed as the relations that are said to provoke and</p><p>soothe them. In Qin’s guanxi relations, affect and emotion have an important</p><p>role, but do so in terms of ‘collective emotion’, rather than in terms of</p><p>the anxiety that resides within the self (Qin, 2009: 12). On a similar note,</p><p>Ling’s Daoist dialectic of multiple worlds is offered as a ‘social ontology’,</p><p>‘a vision, an understanding, a state of being to treat and put into remission</p><p>this “postcolonial anxiety” ’ (Ling, 2014: 31– 2). We may all be in a process</p><p>of becoming, but there would be no reason to be anxious about this if we</p><p>never attached ourselves to an ontology of things or of being in the first</p><p>place. To Berenskötter, to reach harmony means to ‘tame anxiety’, and so</p><p>friends matter because they can help us provide some sense of ontological</p><p>security (Berenskötter, 2007: 666). Shih sees a similar role for friendships or</p><p>‘non- competitive relationships’ drawing on Chinese tradition (Shih, 2016).</p><p>On at least one reading of the yin– yang dialectic, harmony is not the opposite</p><p>of anxiety. Granted, harmony depends on our ability to manage relationships</p><p>in a way that mediates disagreement, but this process as described by Qin</p><p>and Ling is very different from that of taming the anxious self.</p><p>Conclusion: rediscovering friendship in international</p><p>relations</p><p>This chapter started with claims that China will be a new and friendlier kind</p><p>of great power because it relies on a Chinese relational ontology instead of a</p><p>Western ontology of things. Our focus has been on friendship as a component</p><p>of relational ontologies in the theories of IR. We have suggested that it is a</p><p>mistake to essentialize or exoticize relational ontologies as being specifically</p><p>Chinese; the predominance of an ontology of things in IR may be the</p><p>exception rather than the rule in global and historical perspective. Chinese</p><p>thought is a useful reminder to scholars of resources and ways of thinking</p><p>that many contemporary views of politics and IR either ignore or neglect.</p><p>Chinese thought on friendly relations can make a distinct contribution to</p><p>disciplinary efforts to develop relational ontologies. Relational ontologies are</p><p>an essential counterpart to the ‘ontology of things’, which is so foundational</p><p>in much contemporary IR. Chinese relational ontologies suggest that</p><p>understanding the co- constitution of Self and Other is both necessary and</p><p>useful if we are to have a fuller understanding of international politics.</p><p>Moreover, Chinese thought shows that the relations between Self and Other</p><p>FRIENDLY RISE?</p><p>97</p><p>need not be conflictual or colonial. On the contrary, they can be the basis</p><p>for a dynamic of interdependent growth and change.</p><p>Thus, the relational ontologies considered in this chapter provide</p><p>an alternative starting point for understanding China’s friendliness in</p><p>international relations, which differs from common accounts in Chinese</p><p>official, academic and diplomatic discourse. Through them, we come</p><p>to see how China’s friendliness and ‘peaceful rise’ will not depend on</p><p>the autonomous actions of some imagined independent ‘China’, or on</p><p>some essential characteristics of the Chinese people, nation or state. Nor</p><p>does it require conformity,</p><p>integration or socialization into an imagined</p><p>‘international society’ (cf. Ling, 2014: 91). Most importantly, scholars do</p><p>not have to assume that IR is built up of state units that are made anxious by</p><p>the incompleteness and change that is indicated by the presence of others.</p><p>Nor do they have to assume that the only possible significance of friendship</p><p>is to soothe the anxious self. Instead, friendship can be understood as that</p><p>which creates and maintains our continuous becoming with others, and the</p><p>ontological parity of multiple worlds.</p><p>That we have found contemporary discussions based on Chinese epistemic</p><p>legacies to add to the debate in constructive ways does not indicate a necessary</p><p>link to subject positions designated as ‘Chinese’. Specifically, much policy and</p><p>discourse of the Chinese state is wedded to ‘Westphalia world’, as expressed</p><p>in its fixation on territorial sovereignty, the claim that others should not</p><p>voice opinions about China’s ‘internal affairs’, the demand that those who</p><p>are considered ‘insiders’ be patriotically loyal to the party state, and strong</p><p>attachment to the ‘ontology of things’ more generally. We want to be clear,</p><p>therefore, that the Daoist political imaginary suggested here offers a new</p><p>vocabulary for those who want to think differently about relationality and</p><p>anxiety in IR, regardless of whether they are speaking from China, about</p><p>China, or neither. This is not ‘how Chinese people think, feel and behave’;</p><p>it is how people could think, feel and behave. It offers IR a different starting</p><p>point to what many of us are used to, with the potential to help us know our</p><p>worlds in a different way and to produce knowledge about those worlds in a</p><p>different way. It offers one possibility, which does not exclude or denigrate</p><p>other possibilities for thinking world politics.</p><p>Some critics will object that while it might be a better world if state</p><p>identities were accepted as insecure, and both elites and the public were to see</p><p>each other as parts of a whole, this seems unlikely. Indeed, since the Western</p><p>world does largely accept the ontology of things, it remains unclear how the</p><p>view espoused here could come to fruition without a fundamental change</p><p>in worldview. Such critics speak from what Robert Cox famously referred</p><p>to as problem- solving theory, which ‘takes the world as it finds it, with the</p><p>prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions into which they</p><p>are organised, as the given framework for action’ (Cox, 1981: 128– 9). To</p><p>98</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>these critics we want to suggest that now commonplace ideas like democracy,</p><p>human rights, the abolition of slavery, or gender equality were all criticized</p><p>as unlikely to be implemented at some point in history. Nonetheless, they</p><p>continued to be developed as alternative vocabularies and ideas to those</p><p>that dominated intellectual discourse at the time of their emergence. The</p><p>dominance of one set of ideas in a particular society or system is not a good</p><p>reason to refrain from exploring alternative ways of thinking and doing</p><p>world politics. Quite the opposite, as critical academics we should explore</p><p>what may be made possible by mobilizing alternative vocabularies, ideas,</p><p>and traditions of thought, even if we do not make hubristic claims that our</p><p>writing alone will transform the world.</p><p>It is as a possible alternative starting point for thinking that ‘friendship’ is</p><p>useful. As we have argued, friendship should not be understood as simply</p><p>denoting a concern with the personal and private. In fact, its historical and</p><p>cultural usage is far broader and more complex than that. Friendship is useful</p><p>to IR insofar as it helps us refocus on relations and to conceive of those</p><p>relations as a constitutive dynamism of self with other. Bringing friendship</p><p>back to parity can help us grapple with something that is lost when we</p><p>focus on enmity, conflict, war and disjuncture: what it means to ‘become’</p><p>in relation with Others. This is different from discussions of agreements and</p><p>alliances, or understandings of international community that still see peoples</p><p>and states as discrete entities based on an ‘ontology of things’. Chinese</p><p>thought thus reintroduces an ontology of relations to the West and to the</p><p>discipline of IR, and acts as a reminder of what has been forgotten. Such a</p><p>meeting does not reinforce the supposed differences between China and the</p><p>West but acts as a reminder that they are part of creating each other. While</p><p>an ontology of things tends to cast friendship as a conflictual ‘Us and Them’,</p><p>the relational ontology of contemporary Chinese debates on friendship can</p><p>contribute to such debates by viewing other possibilities for Self and Other.</p><p>Friendship achieves this through its focus on the relationship of the friends,</p><p>and the way in which this relationship is formed by, and forms, both Self</p><p>and Other. This ontology reopens the possibilities for friendship as a way of</p><p>conceptualizing Self with Other, rather than Self in contrast to Other.</p><p>Acknowledgements</p><p>This chapter was originally published as A.H.M. Nordin and G.M. Smith</p><p>(2018) ‘Reintroducing Friendship to International Relations: Relational</p><p>Ontologies from China to the West’, International Relations of the Asia Pacific,</p><p>18(3): 369– 96 (Open Access). Nordin and Smith would like to thank</p><p>participants at the 2016 ‘Theorising China’s Rise in and beyond International</p><p>Relations’ Workshop (Deakin University) and the 2017 WISC 5th Global</p><p>International Studies Conference for their valuable comments on earlier</p><p>FRIENDLY RISE?</p><p>99</p><p>versions of their chapter. 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(2014) ‘Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping President of the People’s Republic of</p><p>China at China International Friendship Conference in Commemoration</p><p>of the 60th Anniversary of the CPAFFC’, delivered 15 May, http://</p><p>en.cpaffc.org.cn/ content/ details25- 47426.html</p><p>Zhao, T. (2006) ‘Rethinking Empire from a Chinese Concept “All- under-</p><p>Heaven” ’, Social Identities, 12(1): 29– 41.</p><p>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yin_yang.svg</p><p>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yin_yang.svg</p><p>http://en.cpaffc.org.cn/content/details25-47426.html</p><p>http://en.cpaffc.org.cn/content/details25-47426.html</p><p>102</p><p>5</p><p>Re- Worlding the ‘West’ in</p><p>Post- Western International</p><p>Relations: The ‘Theory Migrant’</p><p>of Tianxia in the Anglosphere</p><p>Yih- Jye Hwang, Raoul Bunskoek and Chih- yu Shih</p><p>Introduction</p><p>The International Relations (IR) discipline developed over the course of</p><p>the 20th century has predominantly focused on the concerns of powerful</p><p>Western states and has elaborated conceptual frameworks that could be</p><p>applied elsewhere (Smith, 2002). Mainstream IR scholars treat different</p><p>regions of the world as test cases for their theories rather than sources of</p><p>theory in themselves. The ‘non- West’ becomes a domain that IR theorists</p><p>perceive as backward, hence requiring instruction in order to reach the</p><p>‘End of History’ encapsulated by Western modernity (Fukuyama, 1992).</p><p>In response, over the past two decades the discipline has witnessed a post-</p><p>Western quest urging IR scholars to ‘re- World’ subaltern voices. From a</p><p>post- Western perspective, no single modernity exists to which all actors must</p><p>aspire and no actor or set of actors is reified. Rather, it seeks out multiple</p><p>worlds and hidden voices (Ling, 2002).</p><p>In its quest to rediscover ‘non- Western’ worlds, post- Western IR urges</p><p>scholars to re- world non- Western sites by examining how Western IR</p><p>discourses have been interpreted and appropriated in each particular site</p><p>over time. This allows the ever- changing and differing meanings of IR to</p><p>be released from the monopolistic grasp by one exclusionary epistemology,</p><p>whereby agency can be rediscovered at non- Western sites for adaptation,</p><p>feedback and reconstruction of the Western influences. Such worlding of</p><p>the non- Western worlds, if successful, exposes the ‘provincial’ characteristics</p><p>of the West, which has mistakenly presented itself as the universal, a result of</p><p>RE-WORLDING THE ‘WEST’ IN POST-WESTERN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS</p><p>103</p><p>Eurocentrism reinforced by the power of expansion (for example imperialism</p><p>and post/ neo- colonialism).</p><p>Nevertheless, a number of caveats exist concerning the post- Western</p><p>exercise. First, post- Western IR seeks to provincialize ‘the West’ as an</p><p>undifferentiated entity and yet strives to world non- Western sites each in their</p><p>own differently different geo- cultural genealogies. Such endeavours risk the</p><p>epistemological pretention that the provincial West cannot and should not</p><p>be worlded. The West is reduced and yet simultaneously promoted to the</p><p>status of an epistemologically unquestioned premise. Second, post- Western</p><p>IR encourages site- centrism in its celebration of contextual alternatives to</p><p>dominant Western discourses, institutions and values; yet, it faults the West</p><p>for committing Eurocentrism when doing the same. A third caveat is the</p><p>tricky assumption of the unilaterally expanding West as if, to date, the West</p><p>has been always on the exporting side. What is consistently ignored, however,</p><p>is that historically and intellectually the West, within its own sitedness and</p><p>provincial geo- cultural trajectories, has likewise been engaging in similar</p><p>kinds of receiving, reinterpreting/ reimagining and re- appropriating (van der</p><p>Veer, 2001). In other words, the post- Western quest in IR has paid little</p><p>attention to how the West has itself been (re)worlded through the appropriation</p><p>and combination of exotic, external and currently subaltern knowledges</p><p>from a variety of similarly provincial sites. Indeed, we underscore that the</p><p>re- worlding of both Western and non- Western sites is epistemologically of</p><p>equal importance.</p><p>To illustrate the re- worlding of the West, this chapter explores the</p><p>different routes – exoticization,</p><p>denial, collusion and absorption (Shih, et al,</p><p>2019: 230) – through which the West, and more specifically the Anglosphere,</p><p>have received and appropriated Chinese IR theories. An allegedly rising</p><p>China has inspired many Chinese scholars to argue that there should be a</p><p>Chinese School of IR theory (Qin, 2005), resulting in various attempts</p><p>over the past decade to establish one (Ren, 2020). Chinese IR scholars are</p><p>dissatisfied with being mere consumers of knowledge rather than knowledge</p><p>producers. Despite their different focuses, all of them have resorted to</p><p>China’s historical experiences and ideas derived from traditional philosophies</p><p>and traditions in order to understand, explain and interpret world politics,</p><p>ostensibly in distinctively Chinese ways (Wang, 2013). Specifically, Chinese</p><p>scholars have attempted to acquire and appropriate theories and practices</p><p>of Tianxia (Zhao, 2019; Shih, 2020a), an ancient Chinese notion which</p><p>now inspires a range of Chinese scholars to formulate ambitious plans for</p><p>China’s future.</p><p>This chapter is structured as follows: first, the chapter demonstrates how</p><p>China’s rise can be understood through a particular Chinese philosophical</p><p>understanding of the world, namely the concept of Tianxia, which constitutes</p><p>a post- Western site. Secondly, it introduces different interpretations of</p><p>104</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>Tianxia by Chinese scholars from Greater China. Thirdly, it discusses how</p><p>both the concept itself and its contemporary Chinese interpretations have</p><p>been received and evaluated in the Anglosphere.</p><p>A post- Western genealogy of Tianxia</p><p>The concept of Tianxia is at the heart of the Chinese School of International</p><p>Relations that has emerged in the context of China’s rise in the 21st century</p><p>(Wang H., 2017; 2021; Hwang, 2021; Ren, 2020). The literature notes</p><p>that the idea of Tianxia can be both exclusionary and cosmopolitan (Chu,</p><p>2020; Wang B., 2017; Xie, 2017). Historically, the term first appeared in the</p><p>‘Tribute to Yu’ (or Yugong), a chapter from The Book of Documents (Shujing),</p><p>which describes Tianxia as encompassing ‘Nine Regions’ (Jiuzhou). Zou Yan</p><p>(305– 240 BCE), a scholar from the Yin- Yang School in the Warring States</p><p>period, proposed the concept of the ‘Greater Nine Regions’. While the</p><p>concept of Tianxia appeared to be geographical, it was in fact cosmological</p><p>due to its heavenly mandated consciousness of universal kingship. The well-</p><p>cited line in The Book of Poetry (Shijing) – ‘Under the whole heaven, every</p><p>spot is the sovereign’s ground; To the borders of the land, every individual is</p><p>the sovereign’s minister’ – clearly expresses this consciousness. In a nutshell,</p><p>the Tianxia philosophy consists of three main points.</p><p>First, heaven (tian) orders the king to rule the world on behalf of heaven.</p><p>Therefore, he is called the ‘Son of Heaven’ (tianzi). Since only one heaven</p><p>exists (spontaneously), there can also be only one heavenly mandate and,</p><p>by extension, only one Son of Heaven. Therefore, in order to obtain and</p><p>retain their legitimacy, emperors have to work carefully to prove that they</p><p>are the true recipients of destiny, and that the destiny claimed by other</p><p>competitors is false. Secondly, to show that they are the true kings ordered</p><p>by heaven, they must establish a complete etiquette system, including</p><p>calendars, clothing and communication rituals, to arrange relationships</p><p>for everyone. Although, implicitly, the order to be entrusted to heaven is</p><p>socially and politically mundane, the etiquette system actually plays a role</p><p>similar to vindicated membership, so the rituals become a shared identity.</p><p>Consequently, the destruction of etiquette is tantamount to violating the</p><p>relational security of all things in the universe. This explains why the issue</p><p>of etiquette frequently became a point of contention in China’s foreign</p><p>relations. Thirdly, the Middle Kingdom is not a higher civilization, but</p><p>the only civilization in the entire world, due to its hosting of the one who</p><p>possesses the heavenly mandate. On its periphery is where ‘aliens’ (or Yi and</p><p>Di) live, and the shift of the mandate between the Middle Kingdom and</p><p>‘aliens’ is also an important part of the Tianxia philosophy.</p><p>Moreover, Tianxia philosophy considers that ‘there is nothing left outside</p><p>the reign of the king’ whenever he has the mandate, and that ‘the whole world</p><p>RE-WORLDING THE ‘WEST’ IN POST-WESTERN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS</p><p>105</p><p>is the king’s land’. Therefore, all known countries are seen as being part of</p><p>the Tianxia system, at least nominally. In reality, however, there are always</p><p>external forces that the king cannot completely subdue. For example, the</p><p>northern nomads rarely entered the etiquette system – in fact, they and the</p><p>Han people were in regular confrontation with each other, and the nomads</p><p>even usurped the mandate of heaven during the Northern Wei, Yuan and</p><p>Qing dynasties. Therefore, since nomads such as the Xiongnu could have</p><p>the mandate, so could the Western imperialist forces that came much later.</p><p>To this extent, Tianxia proves to be practically a cosmology that legitimates</p><p>both the incumbency as well as successful revolutions ex post.</p><p>Given that the thrust of Tianxia is to relate through the etiquette system</p><p>without touching upon the ontological beliefs of alien people and how they</p><p>run their systems or live their lives, the greatest effort goes into introducing</p><p>into their relationships some etiquette agreeable to the other side. Even so,</p><p>material forces achieve a double- sided role, which alludes to the difficulty</p><p>of the Tianxia system to adapt to Western intrusion. On the one hand, the</p><p>king himself should live a frugal life lest the people think the role of the</p><p>king entitled him to unlimited treasures or power and, consequently, desire</p><p>to overthrow him to become the king. On the other hand, since the king</p><p>is apparently unable to rule the entire world physically, his mandate truly</p><p>relies on the willingness of the people of the Middle Kingdom, whom he</p><p>should control, and the aliens, whom he has little influence over. The better</p><p>strategy and the advice given by generations of saints for the king was to</p><p>allow all the people to enjoy better material lives. For the alien people, the</p><p>advice was to provide generous gift giving during the exchange of tribute.</p><p>For the subjects of the Middle Kingdom, the appropriate approach would</p><p>be low taxation so that the people would be able to sustain a content and</p><p>happy life. As such, the mission of the king was to curb the landed classes</p><p>from imposing heavy rents, while defending his people from invasion and</p><p>natural plagues. Such duties encouraged the king to save and accumulate as</p><p>a fulfilment of his mandate.</p><p>The post- Western turn of Tianxia in the Sinosphere began when the</p><p>Western forces invaded China with a force undergirded by materialist</p><p>industrialization. However, the Middle Kingdom had to learn materialism</p><p>to compete for the mandate (Shih, 2010; 2021). Yet, the Middle Kingdom</p><p>embraced an anti- materialist philosophy, since from its viewpoint materialism</p><p>would wrongly encourage the elites as well as the people to desire more.</p><p>Nevertheless, toward the second half of the 19th century, China had already</p><p>run out of material gifts that could be bestowed upon the invading imperialist</p><p>forces. It did not even have enough to appease Japan, a presumably lower</p><p>partner in the etiquette system, which now acted in a European style by</p><p>demanding concessions from a beleaguered China. This embarrassment</p><p>eventually compelled a Westernization campaign in order to strengthen the</p><p>106</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>Middle Kingdom. To make sense of this, neo- Confucianism justified this</p><p>materialist turn by arguing that the Chinese use of material forces carried</p><p>a benevolent message. The material forces, once owned, were not to be</p><p>used for selfish interests, but for the well- being of the</p><p>entire population</p><p>of Tianxia. Such a Tianxia appropriation of materialism has intellectually</p><p>inspired the drive for material forces into the 21st century. Its pursuit of</p><p>beneficial treatment of the people of Tianxia reflects the classic pursuit of the</p><p>heavenly mandate (Bunskoek and Shih, 2021), although the way to achieve</p><p>this is no longer by simply renouncing or sharing the king’s own treasures.</p><p>Rather, the king is obliged to actively grow them in order to have enough</p><p>to share and to defend.</p><p>The post- Western sensibilities of Tianxia vividly testify to the composite</p><p>of cyclical and linear historiographies in the 21st century of Chinese IR</p><p>(Zhang, 2017; Ren, 2020; Shih, 2020b). A cyclical historiography that began</p><p>in the late Qing dynasty is characterized by a constant oscillation between</p><p>materialist self- strengthening and a resort to a culturally appealing spiritual</p><p>devotion and the development of a substituting etiquette system. The history</p><p>of the People’s Republic, for example, has witnessed the sequencing of the</p><p>Great Leap Forward, Four Modernizations, Reform and Opening- up, and</p><p>the Scientific Outlook on Development, with the Cultural Revolution,</p><p>Anti- Spiritual Pollution Campaign, and the Chinese New Left school of</p><p>thought in between.</p><p>In the practitioners’ world, however, a linear historiography is emerging</p><p>that integrates vicariously the material and the spiritual, the Western</p><p>and the Chinese. This integration displays in both the personality of Xi</p><p>Jinping and his policies. Xi has been the first PRC leader to enlist Buddhist</p><p>thought to justify a Socialist drive for material growth, in the same way</p><p>that Republican neo- Confucians had done before him. Both Socialism</p><p>and Confucianism embrace materialist sensibilities, with Confucianism</p><p>harbouring the idea that material welfare for the people is the essence</p><p>of benevolence and Socialism equalizing economic profits between the</p><p>capitalists and the workers. This theoretical as well as pragmatic overlapping</p><p>connects Tianxia to the ethos of capitalism. Meanwhile, the Chinese allies</p><p>of Western liberalism have been the indispensable bridge over the gap</p><p>between the privatized market and property system and the stress of public</p><p>welfare by Confucianism and Socialism. In fact, the Chinese literature</p><p>on Tianxia consistently connotes a message of coexistence of liberalism</p><p>and Chinese thought (for example see Xu, 2012; 2016b; Bai, 2014; Liu,</p><p>2015; Zhao, 2016).</p><p>This composite of Confucianism and Socialism has paralleled a much-</p><p>publicized campaign for a ‘community with shared future for humankind’,</p><p>whose flagship projects include the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the</p><p>Health Silk Road (HSR). While his predecessor Hu Jintao had envisioned</p><p>RE-WORLDING THE ‘WEST’ IN POST-WESTERN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS</p><p>107</p><p>and embarked upon both projects, Xi Jinping made them his signature</p><p>platforms. Although HSR is often thought to have started during the</p><p>COVID- 19 pandemic, it was already part of the BRI. In 2015, Chinese</p><p>health officials released the initiating document titled ‘A Three- Year</p><p>Implementation Plan for Advancing BRI Health Cooperation (2015– 2017)’</p><p>(Ngeow, 2020). Therefore, the foundation laid earlier for HSR shows that</p><p>China had already paid attention to international preparedness for potential</p><p>global health crises, and its largely successful handling of domestic COVID-</p><p>19 outbreaks also enables it to showcase the potential of HSR and play a</p><p>leading role in combating the global COVID- 19 pandemic. According</p><p>to Xi, the community of common destiny is like a Swiss army knife, a</p><p>multifunctional tool which can solve a variety of global challenges (Tobin,</p><p>2018: 157).</p><p>For mainstream IR, the Tianxia discourse that has emerged in support</p><p>of both the BRI and HSR is nothing more than culturally distinctive</p><p>propaganda meant for domestic consumption and for triggering nostalgia</p><p>among China’s neighbours for tributary benevolence. Yet, geographically,</p><p>Tianxia’s evasive scope does resonate with the vision of the community for</p><p>humankind. Thus, the tendency to resort to Tianxia in Chinese IR seems</p><p>only to confirm China’s long- suspected revisionist intention to reformulate</p><p>world order. This could be true or untrue. The epistemological lacuna of</p><p>this evaluation lies in the disregard for Xi’s romantic drive for materialism for</p><p>the sake of making China benevolent again. The mandate of heaven will not</p><p>fall on him unless he is able to compete better than the former imperialist</p><p>forces in terms of his selflessly frugal way of life and his unreserved concern</p><p>for the material benefits of the people of the world.</p><p>Interpretations of Tianxia by contemporary</p><p>Chinese scholars</p><p>The emergence of the Chinese School of International Relations draws on</p><p>Chinese cultural resources to expound distinctive kinds of IR unfamiliar to its</p><p>Western counterparts (Hwang, 2021; Wang, 2021). Tianxia is a major point</p><p>of interest. Chinese officials tend to avoid mentioning the concept of Tianxia</p><p>though. This is mainly due to concerns about the seemingly unequal power</p><p>structure implied in the Tianxia system, which is incompatible with the</p><p>Socialist egalitarian ideology and the government’s ‘anti- hegemonic’ foreign</p><p>policy. Nevertheless, Beijing’s foreign relations have not been without traces</p><p>of the centre– periphery relationships so characteristic of Tianxia. During the</p><p>Cold War, by supporting the wars of liberation led by communist forces in</p><p>countries such as North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Mozambique,</p><p>Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, China (and its leader Mao Zedong) came</p><p>to be regarded as the new leader of the world communist revolution. In the</p><p>108</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>21st century, along with China’s rising power, China’s strategic thinking has</p><p>changed from ‘hiding our capacities and biding our time’ (tāoguāng yǎnghuì)</p><p>in the era of Deng Xiaoping to ‘doing something and making a difference’</p><p>(yǒusuǒ zuòwéi) by Xi Jinping. Against this background, the concept of</p><p>Tianxia has inspired a range of Chinese scholars in formulating emancipative</p><p>plans for China’s transcendence of the Westphalian system. Zhao Tingyang,</p><p>a professor in the Institute of Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social</p><p>Sciences, is the most prominent Chinese intellectual to date to discuss how</p><p>China could change the world order through the application of Tianxia</p><p>(Zhao, 2006; 2009; 2016a; 2016b; 2019).</p><p>According to Zhao, political theorists in the West are mainly concerned</p><p>with political life at the three levels of the individual, the community and</p><p>the nation state. In contrast, the Chinese tradition looks at the world (that</p><p>is Tianxia), the state and the family. Therefore, the largest political unit in</p><p>the Western political tradition is the nation state, whereas in the Chinese</p><p>tradition the largest is the world. The current Westphalian world order will</p><p>inevitably lead to conflict in world politics due to its nature of being primarily</p><p>based on competing national interests. Hence, Zhao suggests that we need</p><p>to transcend the principle of ‘internationality’ and think about the world</p><p>from a truly global perspective. Here, Zhao draws from an idealized version</p><p>of the Tianxia system, presumably implemented during the Zhou dynasty</p><p>(c. 1046– 256 BCE). He argues that this pragmatic system would solve the</p><p>problems of contemporary world affairs by means of a world institution.</p><p>In Zhao’s view, the Tianxia system in the Zhou dynasty was all- inclusive</p><p>geographically, psychologically and institutionally. It operated on three</p><p>levels: (1) the earth, that is, all lands under the sky; (2) a common or public</p><p>choice made by all peoples in the world, truly representing the general will;</p><p>and (3) a universal political system for the world. Zhao therefore believes that,</p><p>in the ontology of Tianxia, the entirety of the world is the unit of analysis,</p><p>and sub- system units, such as nation states, only distract</p><p>has featured prominently (for example Kang, 2003; Kang</p><p>2003/ 04; Johnston, 2012; Zhang and Buzan, 2012; Horesh and Kavalski,</p><p>2014; Rozman, 2015; Acharya, 2017). And yet, the main focus seems</p><p>to be mostly on East Asian and Chinese history, rather than the rise of</p><p>contemporary China. On the other hand, the ‘Chinese IR theory’ debate</p><p>has emerged in part against the backdrop of China’s rise, and Qin Yaqing</p><p>(2005) urges Chinese IR theorists to devote themselves to understanding</p><p>this phenomenon. But with very few exceptions (Ross and Zhu, 2008;</p><p>Yan, 2015; Yan 2020), China’s rise per se is not the subject of Chinese IR</p><p>theorizing. For instance, the Fudan- based IR theorist Tang Shiping (2013),</p><p>the first Asian scholar to win the International Studies Association’s best book</p><p>prize for his theoretical book The Social Evolution of International Politics, bases</p><p>his research almost exclusively on American and European IR theorists, and</p><p>China is not a focus of his theoretical endeavour (Kristensen, 2015: 641).</p><p>More often than not, China’s rise serves primarily as the context, rationale</p><p>and/ or policy objective for the need to grow ‘Chinese- style theory’ (Zhang,</p><p>2012; Ren, 2020: 396).</p><p>Just as ‘all theories have a perspective’ (Cox, 1986: 207), all perspectives</p><p>rest on certain theoretical foundations. In this sense, it can be argued</p><p>that a steady stream of research on China’s rise in recent years has always</p><p>come with certain theoretical angles (Callahan, 2005; Kang, 2007; Chan,</p><p>2008; Johnston, 2008; Ross and Zhu, 2008; Buzan, 2010; Fravel, 2010;</p><p>Mearsheimer, 2010; Qin, 2010; Yan, 2011; Hsiung, 2012; Kirshner, 2012;</p><p>Li, 2016; Walton and Kavalski, 2016; Allison, 2017). Informed by realism,</p><p>particularly offensive realism (Mearsheimer, 2001; Mearsheimer, 2010)</p><p>and power transition theory (Organski, 1961; Organski and Kugler, 1980;</p><p>INTRODUCTION</p><p>5</p><p>Lemke and Tammen, 2003), one influential perspective argues that the tragic</p><p>consequences of previous power transitions, from the Peloponnesian War to</p><p>the two World Wars, do not bode well for China’s rise in the 21st century</p><p>(Tammen and Kugler 2006; Lai, 2011). Another popular perspective, drawing</p><p>from (neo)liberal institutionalism, constructivism and/ or the ES, believes</p><p>that China’s rise, taking place largely within a liberal international order, is</p><p>subject to socialization into international society. As a result, its status quo</p><p>orientation and prospect for peaceful rise cannot be discounted (Johnston,</p><p>2003; Zheng, 2005; Kang, 2007; Ikenberry, 2008; Johnston, 2008; Zhu,</p><p>2008; Buzan, 2010; Clark, 2014).</p><p>However, most of these works, insightful and valuable as they are</p><p>individually, are best described as ‘theoretical explanation’ and ‘applied theory</p><p>testing’, in which IR theory is used as a tool to explain what China is or is</p><p>not, what it will do or will not do, what China’s rise means for other states</p><p>and the international order as a whole, and so forth. In short, the focus of</p><p>analysis is largely an empirical one, often with policy relevance in mind, or</p><p>at least the theoretical focus is narrowly conceived in terms of methodology</p><p>(Sørensen, 2013). In other words, ‘Theory is engaged but the contribution</p><p>is framed as empirical/ methodological rather than theoretical as such’</p><p>(Kristensen, 2015: 642). As a consequence, even as some studies may be</p><p>theoretically reflective and devote a substantial amount of attention to the</p><p>implications for existing theories, the findings often lead to the preference</p><p>to one existing theory over another, or the refinement of an analytical model</p><p>incorporating a number of perspectives or a more complete set of variables</p><p>(for example in terms of analytical eclecticism). Rarely do they result in</p><p>a more radical outcome of challenging the assumptions and concepts of</p><p>existing IR theories per se.</p><p>When China’s rise is understood ‘literally’ and treated merely as a case for</p><p>theory testing, we argue that this represents a missed opportunity for the</p><p>development of IR theory. As a result, the theorization of China’s rise tends</p><p>to be stumped by a twin tendency in IR: (i) to think in paradigms and (ii)</p><p>to return to familiar concepts. Such a tendency in turn may unwittingly</p><p>reinforce the impression that countries in the developing world are merely</p><p>examples of some universal phenomena already observed and theorized</p><p>elsewhere. Sinologist and political scientist Michael Dutton (2002: 495)</p><p>once lamented ‘the impossibility of writing a work that is principally of a</p><p>theoretical nature but that is empirically and geographically grounded in</p><p>Asia rather than in Europe or America’. ‘Why is it that,’ he asks, ‘when it</p><p>comes to Asian area studies, whenever “theory” is invoked, it is invariably</p><p>understood to mean “applied theory” and assumed to be of value only insofar</p><p>as it helps tell the story of the “real” in a more compelling way?’ Dutton’s</p><p>grievance is mainly with the field of Asian area studies. But his question is</p><p>equally applicable to the study of China’s IR.</p><p>6</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>China’s rise and IR theory: a case for deeper</p><p>engagement</p><p>It has now become a cliché that China and East Asia in general are the</p><p>most economically dynamic region in the world. Although we do not</p><p>necessarily agree with Kenneth Waltz’s (1979:73) assertion that ‘A general</p><p>theory of international politics is necessarily based on the great powers’,</p><p>we argue that no IR theory claiming explanatory power and contemporary</p><p>relevance can reasonably ignore the case of China’s rise and IR in East Asia.</p><p>And yet, existing IR theories, as many have pointed out, are largely based</p><p>on European/ Western experiences (Kang, 2003; Hobson, 2012; Rozman,</p><p>2015: 2; Acharya and Buzan, 2017). Not surprisingly, when applied to the</p><p>histories and experiences of the ‘non- Western’ world, ‘long- established</p><p>truisms in Western IRT [International Relations Theory] are quickly called</p><p>into question’ (Buzan and Little, 2010: 197; see also Kang, 2003: 58; Hsiung,</p><p>2012; Kavalski, 2012). Chinese foreign policy, for example, has challenged</p><p>the neat analytical categories of ‘status- quo’ and ‘revisionist’ powers in IR</p><p>theory and practice (Johnston, 2003: 6). Indeed, understanding regional IR</p><p>can ‘expand the conceptual tools for theorising about IR more generally’</p><p>(Johnston, 2012: 56). Kang (2003/ 04: 168) has demonstrated that the field</p><p>of political economy has been able to develop new theoretical concepts such</p><p>as ‘developmental states’ and ‘varieties of capitalism’ through its focus on</p><p>Asian developments, and he sees no reason why IR theorists cannot enrich</p><p>IR theory from studying Asia in a similarly way.</p><p>Despite such calls for connecting Asia/ China with IR theorizing, several</p><p>factors continue to thwart this endeavour. The first factor concerns the</p><p>‘demography’ of IR theorists. While no longer a purely American or Western</p><p>social science (Hoffmann, 1977; Wæver, 1998), the IR discipline at its</p><p>‘theoretical core’ continues to be dominated by ‘Western’ scholars, academia,</p><p>knowledge and experiences, which in most cases draw upon empirical case</p><p>studies from Europe and North America, rather than Asia, China or the</p><p>‘non- Western’ world more broadly. As already noted, when China enters the</p><p>theoretical debate, it is often a matter of applying mainstream Western IR</p><p>theories and practices to China, rather than drawing new theoretical insights</p><p>from it. The road to deciphering contemporary China frequently passes</p><p>through ‘Western’ experiences and analogies such as the Thucydides Trap,</p><p>the Monroe Doctrine and Wilhelmine Germany (Pan, 2012). Meanwhile,</p><p>this has not been helped by the fact that the study of China tends to be</p><p>‘dominated by Sinologists’ or area specialists, not IR theorists (Chan,</p><p>2008: 121). While more scholars now excel at studying both general IR</p><p>and China (for example Alastair Iain Johnston, the late L.H.M. Ling, Qin</p><p>Yaqing, Chih- yu Shih, Wang Jisi, Yan Xuetong and Yongjin Zhang),</p><p>the analysis from</p><p>the systemic level and thus he excludes them (Zhao, 2009: 9). Moreover,</p><p>the Tianxia system makes no distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ since all</p><p>remain what they are internally (Zhao, 2006). In other words, the system</p><p>has only internality, and there will be no insurmountable externalities. The</p><p>system therefore belongs to all humans equally and is more peace-driven</p><p>than the Westphalian system, which has dominated the world order for</p><p>centuries. Zhao’s project can therefore be regarded as an attempt to create</p><p>a holistic entity of humanity, a world of oneness, or a Chinese version of</p><p>Kantian cosmopolitanism or perpetual peace.</p><p>Zhao’s Tianxia system is a utopia that has practical applications. Resembling</p><p>Rawls’ idea of the original position, it is a thought experiment that aims to</p><p>reflect what principles of global governance would manifest in the Chinese</p><p>tradition premised on the holistic entity of humanity. Importantly, Zhao does</p><p>RE-WORLDING THE ‘WEST’ IN POST-WESTERN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS</p><p>109</p><p>not ‘equate his Tianxia system with the ancient Chinese tributary system’</p><p>(Xu, 2017: 48). According to Zhao (2016a), the unified China from the</p><p>Qin to the Qing dynasties constituted a ‘country containing the world’, its</p><p>fundamental characteristic being that it had inherited the spiritual heritage</p><p>of the Tianxia concept but given up the world institution. In other words,</p><p>China transformed ‘the Tianxia spirit into a state spirit, changing a world</p><p>structure into a state structure and consequently turning China into a “world-</p><p>structured” country’ (Zhao, 2019: 22). In this vein, Zhao only attempts to</p><p>utilize the original meaning of Tianxia as derived from the Zhou dynasty and</p><p>not how it was practised after the Qin dynasty in order to propose a plausible</p><p>practice (and way of thinking) for world governance (Zhao, 2016b). His</p><p>theory does not imply that China should lead the world. As Zhao suggests,</p><p>the system ‘is open to any qualified candidates who best know the Way (dao)</p><p>to improve the happiness of all peoples universally’ (Zhao, 2006: 32). That</p><p>said, Zhao implicitly suggests that China can contribute to the establishment</p><p>of the world institution, since the ‘Tianxia spirit’ has remained constant in</p><p>the process of the formation of China today (Zhao and Tao, 2019: 21– 36).</p><p>It is worth noting that the scholarship engaged in the study of the Tianxia</p><p>system is not limited to PRC scholars, nor does it begin with Zhao Tingyang</p><p>(for example Mancall, 1984; Shih, 1990). Between 1992 and 1995, Huang</p><p>Chih- lien, a Hong Kong- based scholar, published successively three research</p><p>works on what he called ‘the etiquette system of the heavenly dynasty’</p><p>(tiāncháo lǐzhì tǐxì) (1992; 1994; 1995). According to Huang, the system</p><p>was derived from the development of the small- scale peasant economy</p><p>and became the main spirit and content of the ‘Han civilization’, which</p><p>represented Chinese civilization. As Huang states (1992: 2; our translation):</p><p>Before the nineteenth century, that is, before the rise of Western</p><p>culture, the Western state, and Western colonialism and imperialism,</p><p>there was a prominent regional order here [that is, East Asia], which was</p><p>centred on the Chinese feudal dynasty (the so- called heavenly dynasty),</p><p>and on etiquette, justice, rule and ritualism as its operating form. It</p><p>played a crucial role in maintaining and stabilising the bilateral and</p><p>multilateral relations between China and its neighbouring countries,</p><p>and between neighbouring countries themselves. Therefore, it is called</p><p>‘the etiquette system of the heavenly dynasty’.</p><p>In Taiwan, the most important research on the Tianxia system is conducted</p><p>by Chang Chi- hsiung (or Zhang Qixiong) of the Academia Sinica (2007,</p><p>2013a, 2013b, 2018). According to Chang, the concept of the ‘Chinese</p><p>World Empire’ originated from the philosophy of ‘Tianxia’. Tianxia equals</p><p>the Chinese world, which is where China’s influence can reach. It consists of</p><p>two parts: a central part and the periphery. In terms of ethnicity, the centre</p><p>110</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>is Hua and the periphery is Yi. Hua plus Yi are the concept of people; the</p><p>Middle Kingdom plus its surrounding kingdoms are the concept of territory;</p><p>the central government and local autonomous governments are the imperial</p><p>institution; the emperor, the king and canonization, plus the tributary system,</p><p>are the concept of power operation (Chang, 2013a: 55). According to this,</p><p>as Chang notes, the Chinese World Empire is an interdependent suzerain</p><p>community, with a higher- level ‘country’ consisting of the Middle Kingdom</p><p>and its surrounding kingdoms. Hence, the 2,000 years of Chinese history</p><p>not only witnessed the change of dynasties among Han Chinese, but also</p><p>saw non- Han Chinese dynasties entering China and becoming the Middle</p><p>Kingdom. Accordingly, the Chinese World Empire is shared and governed</p><p>by people from all over the Chinese world. It is thus a multi- ethnic country</p><p>as well as a ‘Tianxia state’.</p><p>Due to the different (ethnic) compositions of the Western and Chinese</p><p>worlds, there were big differences in the principles of their respective</p><p>(international) orders. And when the two worlds met, these different</p><p>principles inevitably led to clashes. Starting in the 19th century, using</p><p>advanced technologies and powerful armies, Western countries occupied</p><p>and colonized the world. Public international law, which was originally</p><p>conceived and used to regulate the interactions among European nation</p><p>states, became the only legal framework available (or legitimate) to regulate</p><p>the entire world, thus acting as the ‘common’ law of all nations. This law has</p><p>never extracted any relevant legal principles from non- Western cultural values</p><p>and principles and used them as a legal basis for regulating the ‘universe’ of</p><p>international compliance. Therefore, Chang believes that we should retrieve</p><p>China’s inherent principles of international order, rather than just blindly</p><p>following Western jurisdictions to regulate and interpret our international</p><p>behaviour. To Chang, the international system of today’s world should at</p><p>least be divided into Chinese, European, Islamic, Hindu, Latin American</p><p>and African international systems. Based on the principles of international</p><p>order formed by their unique historical and cultural values, each should</p><p>implement its own ‘international system autonomy’. For Chang, this would</p><p>be the fundament of long- term peace and stability in the world.</p><p>In short, despite their different foci in interpreting Tianxia, all of the</p><p>Chinese scholars discussed earlier have tried to de- peripheralize China in</p><p>the world of theory by resorting to China’s historical experiences and ideas</p><p>derived from traditional philosophies and traditions, in order to understand,</p><p>explain and interpret world politics in distinctively Chinese ways. They all</p><p>believe that a new interpretation of the pre- modern world order in East Asia</p><p>is vital for transcending the Westphalian system and understanding China’s</p><p>rise and contemporary IR in East Asia. Therefore, it is necessary to re-</p><p>examine the Tianxia system in the history of East Asia and the international</p><p>order established on this basis. As Hsu noted in 1960 (p. 210),</p><p>RE-WORLDING THE ‘WEST’ IN POST-WESTERN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS</p><p>111</p><p>it was only through necessity, not free choice, that China had entered</p><p>the world community. The old dream of the universal empire … still</p><p>lingered in the Chinese mind, and their residual effects were clearly</p><p>discernible … [w] ith the rise of Communist China as the most powerful</p><p>nation in East Asia … one wonders whether the ‘universal’ State and the</p><p>tributary system of the past have not been revived in a modern term.</p><p>The reception of ‘Tianxia’ in the Anglosphere:</p><p>exoticization and denial</p><p>The concept of Tianxia has become an important focus of debate in academic</p><p>circles in the Anglophone world since the publication of</p><p>Zhao Tingyang’s</p><p>book. Many authors have been discussing the intricate details of the re-</p><p>emergence of Tianxia and its applicability for today’s international politics.</p><p>The majority of those studies suggest that the Tianxia system constitutes a</p><p>particular (Chinese) way of thinking about international order, either in the</p><p>past or in the future. Those readings of Tianxia are greatly influenced by J.K.</p><p>Fairbank, who, by systematically studying the ‘tributary system’, spread the</p><p>concept to European and American academia. He introduced the concept of</p><p>‘Chinese World Order’ to cover the traditional Chinese Tianxia worldview.</p><p>In his PhD thesis, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of</p><p>the Treaty Ports, 1842– 1854, published later in 1953, Fairbank pointed out</p><p>that the Chinese empire, no matter whether it was ruled by Han Chinese</p><p>or non- Han Chinese, had always used the tributary system to manage</p><p>its foreign relations with the outside world. He further believed that the</p><p>tributary system functioned not only as an institution dealing with trade</p><p>and diplomatic relations, but also as a religious ceremony that asserted the</p><p>universality of the Confucian order. The most successful aspect of this</p><p>system, according to Fairbank, was that it integrated the various dimensions</p><p>of social life in the Chinese empire. Fairbank’s edited book The Chinese</p><p>World Order: Traditional Chinese Foreign Relations (1968) can be regarded as</p><p>the most important study of the Chinese tributary system in English. In his</p><p>Introduction to the book, Fairbank briefly outlined his view on the tributary</p><p>system, which is summarized as follows.</p><p>According to Fairbank, the relationships between the Chinese people</p><p>and the surrounding areas, as well as with non- Chinese people in general,</p><p>are characterized by a Sino- centrism reflecting China’s superiority. Chinese</p><p>people often perceived diplomatic relations as a demonstration of the same</p><p>principles embodied in the political and social orders in China. Therefore,</p><p>China’s diplomatic relations, like relationships within Chinese society</p><p>itself, were hierarchical. Foreign countries that wished to have relations</p><p>with China were expected (and, when possible, obliged) to integrate into</p><p>this system by becoming tributary states; the trade system was then used</p><p>112</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>to maintain this patriarchal relationship (Fairbank, 1968: 4). Consequently,</p><p>terms such as ‘international’ and even ‘interstate’ are inappropriate to describe</p><p>China’s relations with the outside world. Conversely, other countries can be</p><p>categorized into three major circles. The first one is the Sinic zone, which</p><p>consists of several neighbouring countries with similar cultures – that is</p><p>Korea and Vietnam, and for brief periods also the Ryukyu Kingdom and</p><p>Japan – some of which were ruled directly by the Chinese Empire in ancient</p><p>times. The second is the Inner Asian zone, which is composed of subordinate</p><p>countries and tribes such as Asian inland nomadic or semi- nomadic ones.</p><p>They are not only racially and culturally different from China, but they lie</p><p>also geographically outside or on the edge of the Chinese cultural zone. The</p><p>third circle is the outer zone, which is generally blocked by high mountains</p><p>and composed of foreigners separated by vast oceans. It included countries</p><p>and regions that had to pay tribute by means of trade, such as Japan, Malaysia,</p><p>Siam and other countries in South(East) Asia and Europe.</p><p>Fairbank’s ‘Chinese World Order’ paradigm has since become a dominant</p><p>model for the study of the ancient Chinese tributary systems in Anglophone</p><p>academic circles and beyond. This includes not only the general studies of</p><p>the Chinese tributary system by scholars such as Mark Mancall (1984) and</p><p>Zhao Suisheng (1997), but also the bilateral case studies between China and</p><p>Korea, China and Thailand, and so on by scholars such as Sarasin Viraphol</p><p>(1977). Although Fairbank’s views have been increasingly criticized and</p><p>challenged in Western academic circles (for example Cohen, 1984), his</p><p>interpretation of the tributary system still affects the responses of most</p><p>Western IR scholars. Among them, William Callahan’s criticism of Zhao</p><p>Tingyang is the most representative.</p><p>Callahan (2008) argues that the majority of the literature on Tianxia,</p><p>including Zhao’s theory, has focused on its potential as a resource for</p><p>recentring China and the Chinese understandings of world order as a</p><p>patriotic activity. It embraces a distinctively Chinese practice of hegemony</p><p>that the West has never encountered before. As Callahan (2008: 759) states:</p><p>[While] the Westphalian system is rightly criticized for being state-</p><p>centric, the Tianxia example shows how non- Western alternatives can</p><p>be even more state- centric. Moreover, proposals for a ‘post- hegemonic’</p><p>system often contain the seeds of a new (and often violent) system of</p><p>inclusion and exclusion: Tianxia presents a popular example of a new</p><p>hegemony where imperial China’s hierarchical governance is up dated</p><p>for the twenty- first century.</p><p>Callahan goes further to question Zhao’s motivations. To Callahan, Zhao</p><p>appears to be a grand strategist who seeks to dissolve the identities of China’s</p><p>neighbouring countries in order to preserve their relationality within the</p><p>RE-WORLDING THE ‘WEST’ IN POST-WESTERN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS</p><p>113</p><p>Tianxia system. This framing offers China ample room to manoeuvre</p><p>for the submission of others in the name of benefiting them. According</p><p>to Callahan, behind Zhao’s argumentation of a ‘benign’ world order and</p><p>the promotion of peace lurk the aspirations for a new hegemon; namely</p><p>China. This is underscored by the attention that Zhao’s theory has garnered</p><p>from numerous Chinese scholars. In other words, Callahan underlines that</p><p>although Zhao’s theory might seem unrealistic, it does sketch an image of</p><p>China that the CCP could strive for, an image that is mainly based upon</p><p>making China the centre of the world through hard military and economic</p><p>power and normative objectives.</p><p>It would seem that despite the observations of other scholars (for example</p><p>Jiang, 2007; Wang, 2008), Callahan’s fierce criticism of Zhao’s thesis has</p><p>been the one that has gained traction among scholars in the Anglosphere</p><p>and beyond. The similarity among those critics of Zhao’s thesis lies in their</p><p>shared treatment of Tianxia as a resource to be appropriated strategically to</p><p>undergird China’s interest. There is doubt whether or not China is capable</p><p>of ruling Tianxia again (Dreyer, 2015). Even so, China appears as an owner</p><p>of an initiative, an agency and a different identity, and Tianxia represents an</p><p>alternative discursive empire or hegemony that justifies China ruling at the</p><p>top (Callahan, 2008; Wang, 2017). These approaches consider Tianxia to be</p><p>a strategic resource that proffers a Chinese way of expanding the country’s</p><p>influence, underscoring a hierarchical world order, and may be used to</p><p>change and silence its neighbours. To those critics, a rising China could</p><p>only represent a territorial empire, and the uses of the concept of Tianxia</p><p>by Chinese scholars are primarily intended to serve China’s ambition for</p><p>territorial expansion. As a result, the concept is not productive for advancing</p><p>IR theorization.</p><p>Unlike Callahan, however, Martin Jacques is less concerned by the re-</p><p>engagement with Chinese ideas such as the concept of Tianxia. In his book,</p><p>When China Rules the World (2009), Jacques points out that the world affairs of</p><p>the future will be dominated by China, and that the global system developed</p><p>by China will differ from the one promoted by the West. Jacques argues that</p><p>whereas we used to live in a world in which modernization and globalization</p><p>were synonymous with Westernization, with the rise of China (and other</p><p>Asian countries such as India), this view is increasingly being threatened.</p><p>In short, we are entering a period of ‘contested modernity’</p><p>in which the</p><p>norms and ideas associated with ‘modernity’ will be challenged significantly</p><p>by non- Western influences. The bearer of this change will be China. In</p><p>addition, Jacques asserts that the rise of China is and will be unlike that of</p><p>Western countries. Echoing Lucian Pye, Jacques insists that China should</p><p>not be seen as a nation state, but as a civilizational state (2009: 13) because</p><p>China existed within its contemporary approximate borders long before the</p><p>emergence of the concept of the nation state. In terms of foreign relations,</p><p>114</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>Jacques asserts that the new international order that China is building will</p><p>contain elements of the ‘tributary system’ (2009: 646– 9) even though he</p><p>does not think that it would be ‘a simple rerun of the past’ (2009: 721).</p><p>A more likely scenario is the ascendance of a China- centric hierarchical</p><p>order in East Asia with ‘underlying recognition and acceptance of Chinese</p><p>superiority’ (Jacques, 2009: 721).</p><p>Nevertheless, Jacques (2009) is curious about the changes Tianxia could</p><p>bring to global governance. He states that ‘The rise of China and a return</p><p>to something more akin to a tributary- state system will not necessarily</p><p>be distinguished by instability; on the contrary, the tributary- state system</p><p>was highly stable, rooted as it was in China’s dominance and a virtually</p><p>unchallenged hierarchical pattern of relationships’ (Jacques, 2009: 721). In</p><p>this regard, Jacques’s position is similar to that of David Kang, who argues</p><p>that China’s traditional hierarchical order is more peaceful than Europe’s</p><p>egalitarian Westphalian system (Kang, 2010). Jacques believes that China</p><p>will ‘be rather less overtly aggressive than the West has been’ (2009: 678).</p><p>Hence, he is more willing to see the Tianxia system as a plausible alternative</p><p>to world governance.</p><p>While the literature discussed has seen Tianxia as a distinctive Chinese</p><p>worldview and focused on its either positive or negative potential as a</p><p>resource for out- groups, Fei- Ling Wang, a Chinese political scientist based in</p><p>the United States, regards Tianxia as neither universal in fulfilling functions</p><p>nor useful to out- groups. In his book, The China Order (2017), Wang argues</p><p>that ‘the world empire of Tianxia’ was built upon the model of the ‘Qin- Han</p><p>polity’. It was implemented by the rulers of ‘Centralia’ or ‘China Proper’</p><p>during the Qin and Han dynasties for the first time. Although this ‘China</p><p>Order’ collapsed several times as a world order, it never disappeared as a</p><p>dominant political ideology in China. The key characteristics of this order</p><p>include ‘its totality, universality, dualities, control, hypocrisy and duplicity,</p><p>efficacy, and longevity’ (Wang, 2017: 101). According to Wang (2017: 31),</p><p>there were only three periods in Chinese history that did not follow this</p><p>dominant order. The first one was the pre- Qin era, which had a ‘de facto</p><p>Westphalia- like world political system’ that consisted of multiple states</p><p>interacting in trade, diplomacy, and war. The second period was the Song</p><p>dynasty of the 11th century. In this period, the Song signed the Chanyuan</p><p>Treaty of 1005 with the Liao, recognizing one another as coexisting equals.</p><p>In Wang’s view, this is a proto- Westphalian model. The third period was</p><p>the early Republican period, or ‘the century of humiliation and progress’</p><p>(1842– 1949). To Wang (2017: 30), these three periods represented ‘the</p><p>real golden eras of the long history of the Chinese World’. Unaware of</p><p>many Chinese Tianxia writers aiming at incorporating liberalism, Wang</p><p>obviously sees the Westphalian system of nation states as a better system</p><p>for spreading liberalism because power is decentralized, fragmented and</p><p>RE-WORLDING THE ‘WEST’ IN POST-WESTERN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS</p><p>115</p><p>competitive, while viewing the China order as a ‘suboptimal’ order that</p><p>should best be abolished.</p><p>The reception of Tianxia in the Anglosphere: collusion</p><p>and absorption</p><p>Scholars have long noticed the inconsistency of the Tianxia/ tributary system.</p><p>In Fairbank’s edited volume, Lien- sheng Yang (1968) and Wang Gungwu</p><p>(1968) pointed out that the China- centred world order has two aspects: myth</p><p>and reality. Yang noted that there was little historical evidence to support</p><p>the assumption that China’s relations with its neighbouring countries were</p><p>motivated by a sense of superiority as suggested by the theory of Sino-</p><p>centrism. But as Yang (1968: 22) noted, a myth can be influential in that it</p><p>can still be ‘a cultural or psychological reality’ (Yang, 1968: 22). Likewise,</p><p>Wang Gungwu (1968: 34– 60) also pointed out that in the actual diplomatic</p><p>practices of ancient China, security and interests were the main factors</p><p>affecting decision making. In this sense, Wang is undoubtedly the pioneer</p><p>of the realist paradigm although he also attaches great importance to the</p><p>influence of ‘rhetoric’. He traced the source of China’s superiority in detail</p><p>and believed that this superiority had a huge impact on diplomatic practices</p><p>in ancient China. Fairbank also pointed out that in the administration of their</p><p>relations with the outside world, the repertoire of means available to rulers</p><p>of the Chinese empire ‘lie along a spectrum that runs from one extreme of</p><p>military conquest and administrative assimilation … to another extreme of</p><p>complete nonintercourse and avoidance of contact’ (Fairbank, 1968: 12).</p><p>Many historical studies in English have suggested the asymmetric use of</p><p>hard power and soft/ normative power in favour of the former in Chinese</p><p>history. Yuan- kang Wang, in his work on China’s pre- modern foreign</p><p>relations during the periods of the Song and Ming dynasties (2010, 2012),</p><p>argues that China was not so different from other great powers both past</p><p>and present, such as the United States, for instance. According to Wang,</p><p>the ideational power of Confucian pacifism was not as influential as has</p><p>been assumed. Ming China, for example, was expansionist at the apex of its</p><p>power. ‘[It] repeatedly attacked the Mongols, annexed Vietnam as a Chinese</p><p>province, and launched seven maritime expeditions to project power abroad.</p><p>To consolidate its dominance, the Ming dictated the rules of the game for</p><p>lesser polities to follow, and used Confucian ideology to justify its dominant</p><p>position within the tribute system’ (2012: 151– 2). In other words, ancient</p><p>China followed (structural) realism. ‘Confucian culture did not constrain the</p><p>leaders’ decision to use force; in making such decisions, leaders have been</p><p>mainly motivated by their assessment of the balance of power between China</p><p>and its adversary’ (Wang, 2010: 181). Similarly, Brantly Womack’s study</p><p>of the relations between China and Vietnam (2006) suggest that although</p><p>116</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>moral considerations have played a part, it is the logic of realism that actually</p><p>played a decisive role. When China is unable to conquer Vietnam by force,</p><p>establishing tributary relations can guarantee a stable border, exempting</p><p>Vietnam from its northern threat. Wang’s and Womack’s respective views</p><p>resonate with the findings by Johnston (1995), who explains that the mix</p><p>of the Confucian- Mencian and parabellum paradigms in Chinese strategic</p><p>thought often led to strategic outcomes similar to those anticipated by</p><p>structural realists.</p><p>In other words, all these scholars evidence that the core of the tributary</p><p>relationship is framed by (structural) realist considerations. Consequently, the</p><p>rhetoric of the Chinese dynasties in the past only played a modifying role, and</p><p>ideational factors did not affect final decisions, which were determined by</p><p>material interests. Human nature, and by extension political action, has not</p><p>changed despite the cultural differences, making the basic logic of political</p><p>behaviour universal. As a result, Tianxia is just another term for empire, and</p><p>the tributary relationships in Ming and Qing</p><p>China, as Zhang and Buzan</p><p>(2012: 33) demonstrate, were essentially more like hegemonic relationships</p><p>than the suzerain- vassal relationships described in the Tianxia discourse.</p><p>In the Anglosphere, very few studies written by non- Chinese scholars</p><p>have considered Tianxia as a universal framework for the explanation and</p><p>understanding of contemporary IR. The work by both Yuen Foong Khong</p><p>(2013) and Salvatore Babones (2017) on ‘American Tianxia’ stand out as</p><p>two exceptions to this trend. Khong believes that, compared to China, the</p><p>United States has actually established the most successful tributary system</p><p>in the world. The United States provides military protection and market</p><p>access permits to its allies (or tributary states). Similarly, Babones (correctly)</p><p>notes that Zhao Tingyang’s model of Tianxia does not necessarily imply</p><p>that China should lead the world. According to Babones (2017), as far as</p><p>the current world is concerned, the United States is the central country that</p><p>determines the world order, making it effectively the ‘Middle Kingdom’ of</p><p>the world today.</p><p>According to the traditional Chinese ‘Five Zone’ theory (Babones,</p><p>2017: 3), the world is organized into five concentric circles: (1) ‘the royal</p><p>domain of lands under the personal lordship of the emperor’; (2) ‘the domains</p><p>of the emperor’s Chinese subsidiary lords’; (3) ‘the conquered kingdoms</p><p>of non- Chinese peoples and pacified barbarian peoples’; (4) ‘the tributary</p><p>barbarians, who sent customary tribute to the emperor’s court as a token</p><p>of submission’; and (5) ‘wild barbarians, who did not’. Only the first three</p><p>zones lie inside the Chinese empire. The American version of the five zones,</p><p>starting from the first circle, ‘runs along the east coast of the United States</p><p>from Washington DC through New York to Boston’ (Babones, 2017: 27).</p><p>The second circle, constituted by the remainder of the United States, ‘is a</p><p>culturally and politically unified zone comparable to the ethnically Chinese</p><p>RE-WORLDING THE ‘WEST’ IN POST-WESTERN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS</p><p>117</p><p>component of the Ming empire’ (Babones, 2017: 27). The third circle</p><p>is composed of Washington’s Anglo- Saxon allies, including the ‘United</p><p>Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand with which the United States</p><p>shares an integrated signals intelligence network (“ECHELON”) and full</p><p>military interoperability’. With the fourth circle, Babones refers to the</p><p>United States’ other allies and aligned states. Finally, the fifth one concerns</p><p>non- aligned states and enemies.</p><p>Following June Dreyer (2015), Babones explains why China is not the</p><p>most suitable country to realize the Tianxia system. For Babones, China is</p><p>restricted by its limited capabilities. He admits that China’s economy will</p><p>surpass that of the United States in the near future, but he does not believe</p><p>that the overall strength of the United States’ power will be surpassed by</p><p>China. He cites New York as the world centre of finance, media, art and</p><p>fashion; Boston of education; Silicon Valley of information technology; and</p><p>so forth. Therefore, Babones disagrees that American hegemony is in decline.</p><p>Rather, he predicts that the US- led world order will be difficult to shake.</p><p>More importantly, in terms of values, he argues that American individualism</p><p>is more attractive than Chinese values. According to Babones, the United</p><p>States has succeeded in making the individualistic lifestyle a universal value, to</p><p>which still more and more people are attracted, and which has even emerged</p><p>as the real ‘End of History’ – as opposed to Fukuyama’s liberal democracy.</p><p>Therefore, believing that the American order is transforming itself into a</p><p>more stable Tianxia system, Babones turns the concept into a useful resource</p><p>for the representation and theorizing of universal values about order in IR.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>This chapter first traced the genealogy of the concept of Tianxia from</p><p>its emergence in ancient China to its employment in the domestic and</p><p>foreign policies of the People’s Republic of China. It then elaborated how</p><p>the concept re- emerged in the contemporary Chinese academic (IR)</p><p>community. Finally, it discussed how Tianxia migrated to the West and was</p><p>received, interpreted and appropriated there. By doing so, the chapter has</p><p>contributed to theorization of post- Western IR by providing an example of</p><p>the re- worlding of the West itself through the appropriation and combination</p><p>of the exotic, external and (still) subaltern knowledge about the concept,</p><p>history and practices of Tianxia.</p><p>It is particularly timely, albeit poignant, to critically reflect upon the post-</p><p>Western and re- worlded identities of the West during the ongoing COVID-</p><p>19 pandemic. Consider China’s relative success in controlling the spread of</p><p>the viruses and its willingness to provide medical supplies, as opposed to the</p><p>Western countries’ quest for monopoly of medical resources for their own</p><p>use. The pandemic is providing a real- world illustration of how different</p><p>118</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>provincial Western sites each try to make sense of, and reply to, Chinese</p><p>medical activism (Yeophantong and Shih, 2021). By engaging this medical</p><p>Tianxia of China, they are able to force reconsiderations and restructurations</p><p>assisting the practice of their own post- Western/ post- Tianxia identities.</p><p>The chapter has also highlighted four dominant ways of how the West,</p><p>more specifically the Anglosphere, has dealt with Tianxia, namely as an exotic</p><p>resource that is different from the West yet can be useful to understand the</p><p>non- West (for example Fairbank, Callahan and Jacques); entirely denied as a</p><p>useful concept (for example Wang, F.); in collusion with Western theories,</p><p>especially structural realism (for example Wang, G., Yang and Womack); and</p><p>absorbed entirely as a universally applicable concept (for example Babones).</p><p>Such considerations offer meaningful encounters with the theorizing of</p><p>China’s rise in IR and facilitate productive reconsiderations of the established</p><p>frameworks for the explanation and understanding of international affairs.</p><p>Acknowledgements</p><p>This chapter is a revised version of an article originally published as Chih- yu</p><p>Shih and Yih- Jye Hwang (2018) ‘Re- worlding the “West” in Post- Western</p><p>IR: The Reception of Sun Zi’s the Art of War in the Anglosphere’, International</p><p>Relations of the Asia- Pacific, 18(3): 421– 48 (republished by permission of</p><p>Oxford University Press).</p><p>References</p><p>Babones, S. 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(2019) Redefining a Philosophy for World Governance.</p><p>London: Palgrave Macmillan.</p><p>PART II</p><p>Theorizing China’s</p><p>Rise: Critical Reflection</p><p>on Mainstream Frameworks</p><p>125</p><p>6</p><p>China in the International Order:</p><p>A Contributor or a Challenger?</p><p>Wang Jisi</p><p>The rapid growth of China’s power and influence has become one of the</p><p>most salient phenomena in world politics today. Particularly since 2012, when</p><p>President Xi Jinping became China’s top leader, China has been viewed as</p><p>increasingly ‘assertive’ in conducting its foreign relations. Henry Kissinger</p><p>(2014), in his book World Order, devotes an entire chapter to the complex and</p><p>subtle relations between China and the international order. As he observes,</p><p>Beijing has become much more active on the world scene. … By any</p><p>standard, China has regained the stature by which it was known in the</p><p>centuries of its most far- reaching influence. The question now is how</p><p>it will relate to the contemporary search for world order, particularly</p><p>in its relations with the United States. (Kissinger, 2014: 225– 6)</p><p>Likewise, John Ikenberry (2011: 343), a prominent professor of international</p><p>affairs at Princeton University, remarks that ‘China is in critical respects</p><p>the “swing state” in world politics’, which begs the crucial question: ‘Will</p><p>China seek to oppose and overturn the evolving Western- centred liberal</p><p>international order, or will it integrate into and assert authority within</p><p>that order?’</p><p>There are three different answers to this question in China as well as in</p><p>other parts of the world. The first answer is that for the sake of its own</p><p>interest, China needs to integrate into the existing international order, rather</p><p>than overturn it, albeit with some reforms (Da, 2021; see also Chapter 7).</p><p>In his speech in the United States in September 2015, Xi Jinping (2015)</p><p>pronounced that</p><p>126</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>[a] s far as the existing international system is concerned, China has</p><p>been a participant, builder and contributor. We stand firmly for</p><p>the international order and system that is based on the purposes</p><p>and principles of the UN Charter. A great number of countries,</p><p>especially developing countries, want to see a more just and equitable</p><p>international system, but it doesn’t mean they want to unravel the entire</p><p>system or start all over again. Rather, what they want is to reform and</p><p>improve the system to keep up with the times.</p><p>At the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) Brasilia</p><p>Summit in November 2019, Xi restated this commitment: ‘It is important</p><p>that we uphold the purposes and principles of the United Nations (UN)</p><p>Charter and the UN- centred international system, oppose hegemonism</p><p>and power politics, and take a constructive part in settling geopolitical flash</p><p>points’. Other Chinese official statements have also reiterated that China</p><p>wants to work with other countries to ‘uphold an international order based</p><p>on international law’ and ‘push the international order toward a more just</p><p>and reasonable direction’ (Xi, 2019).</p><p>The second answer, expressed by many Chinese and international</p><p>observers, tends to ignore or discredit Beijing’s assurances. These observers</p><p>believe that China will try to change the patterns of international order</p><p>completely by capitalizing on its accumulated capacities and mobilizing</p><p>possible international allies. Thus, China’s rise seeks to change the world</p><p>in its own image (Kassam and Lim, 2021; Mitter, 2021). Such scholarship</p><p>interprets China’s national interests to be in direct conflict with those of</p><p>the United States, which, together with other developed countries, plays a</p><p>dominant role in maintaining the current world order. The logical conclusion</p><p>of this perspective is that China and the United States will eventually have</p><p>to fight a war for the leadership position in the international pecking order.</p><p>The third school of thought also believes in this ‘iron logic of power’ that</p><p>will lead China and the United States to rivalry. However, the claim is that</p><p>China’s power has not risen to the stage of openly challenging the United</p><p>States for the dominant position in the international order (Buckley, 2011/</p><p>12). The Chinese proponents of this perspective most often refer to Deng</p><p>Xiaoping’s famous saying in the early 1990s about tao guang yang hui (‘keeping</p><p>a low profile’ or ‘hiding one’s capacities and biding one’s time’). They argue</p><p>that an early showdown with the United States would inflict unnecessary</p><p>losses on China (Lin, 2010). Their assumption is that when China has</p><p>accumulated sufficient capacities, it should create a new international order</p><p>in which China will replace the United States as the global leader.</p><p>This chapter attempts to analyse China’s attitude towards, and influence</p><p>on, the existing international order. Before doing so, a discussion of the basic</p><p>concepts regarding ‘China’ and ‘international order’ is in order.</p><p>CHINA IN THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER</p><p>127</p><p>What is ‘China’?</p><p>At first sight, ‘what is China’ seems a non- issue. However, in scholarly terms</p><p>it is a big and complicated one. In the Chinese mainland, it is the official</p><p>position that ‘there is only one China in the world, Taiwan is a part of China</p><p>and the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the sole</p><p>legal government representing the whole of China’ (Taiwan Affairs Office</p><p>and the Information Office of the State Council, 2000). The United States</p><p>and the vast majority of the</p><p>international community adopt the ‘One China</p><p>Policy’, despite some variations in its definition. Nonetheless, even today</p><p>Taiwan calls itself the ‘Republic of China’, even though its identity as part</p><p>of the Chinese nation is controversial on the island.</p><p>However the Taiwan issue is defined, the reality is that in the current</p><p>international system the PRC, founded in 1949, is a contemporary sovereign</p><p>state and one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.</p><p>When we discuss ‘China in the international order’, we are clearly referring</p><p>to the PRC rather than the combination of the Chinese mainland and</p><p>Taiwan. This China is what I would call ‘political China’.</p><p>In the mindset of almost all the Chinese people in the PRC, two other</p><p>understandings of China are relevant, which may be confusing to people</p><p>outside of China. The first understanding could be named ‘historical China’,</p><p>‘civilizational China’ or ‘cultural China’. It is commonly said that China</p><p>represents a continuous civilization with a history of 4,000 or 5,000 years.</p><p>When people in China claim that the Nansha Islands (known as the Spratly</p><p>Islands outside of China) have been China’s territories since Emperor Wu’s</p><p>reign (156– 87 BCE) in the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), or a certain</p><p>land has been Chinese territory ‘since ancient times’, they express the</p><p>popular Chinese conviction that the PRC is entitled to inherit territories</p><p>of ancient dynasties like the Han or the Song (960– 1279). When these</p><p>understandings are superimposed onto current international life, one may</p><p>find that such Chinese arguments are hardly acceptable to other states, such</p><p>as the Philippines and Malaysia, for instance, each of which has territorial</p><p>disputes with the PRC and claims that the current Chinese state did not</p><p>even exist in ancient times.</p><p>The second understanding could be presented as ‘ethnic China’ or</p><p>‘Chinese descent’. In the Chinese language, Zhongguo ren could have at least</p><p>two different semantic meanings: citizens of China (or the PRC), and Han</p><p>Chinese as an ethnic group. It is a widely shared notion in the PRC that all</p><p>Zhongguo ren, regardless of where they live, what citizenship they hold, and</p><p>whether they are ethnically Han, should be patriotic to Zhongguo (China)</p><p>or Zhonghua minzu (the Chinese nation). This understanding would likely</p><p>bring about two confusions. First, although the PRC government makes a</p><p>clear distinction between PRC citizens living abroad (huaqiao) and foreign</p><p>128</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>citizens of Chinese origin (huaren) in legal terms, in practice the two concepts</p><p>are often interchangeable. Things could turn more complicated if individuals</p><p>from Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau are involved. Secondly, it is debatable</p><p>whether Tibetans, Uighurs and other national minorities in China should</p><p>be identified as ‘Chinese’ in an ethnic sense because, while they are PRC</p><p>citizens, they are ethnically not Han.</p><p>In the context of the ‘rise of China’ and its relationship with the</p><p>international order, China is not merely the PRC. It implicitly means the</p><p>‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’, as the official PRC slogan holds,</p><p>and may include not only ‘political China’, but also ‘civilisational China’</p><p>and ‘ethnic China’. Some recent Chinese initiatives, such as the ‘Silk Road</p><p>Economic Belt’ and the ‘21st- Century Maritime Silk Road’, as well as the</p><p>hundreds of Confucius Institutes the PRC has established all over the world,</p><p>make other countries feel that China’s presence goes far beyond the politics</p><p>and economics of the PRC. On the one hand, this diversity of Chinese</p><p>identity may provide more policy instruments for the PRC to influence</p><p>the formation of international order. On the other hand, this diversity may</p><p>also lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding between China and</p><p>the outside world in general, and its neighbouring countries in particular,</p><p>as they are more sensitive to the impact of ‘civilisational China’, ‘historical</p><p>China’ and ‘ethnic China’.</p><p>What is ‘international order’?</p><p>International order as a concept and reality originated from the birth of the</p><p>Westphalian System. The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia defined norms and rules</p><p>of international (interstate, to be exact) relations based on the principles</p><p>of state sovereignty, equality, peaceful settlement of international disputes,</p><p>religious freedom, and so on. Since then, international order has been built</p><p>according to these rules. It should be noted that China prefers to use the</p><p>term ‘international order’ rather than ‘world order’ or ‘global order’ because</p><p>the former only takes sovereign states as basic legitimate units while the latter</p><p>can accommodate a system that has a much wider span of time and space.</p><p>The concept of ‘world order’ could more easily accommodate, for example,</p><p>the imperial order established by the Mongol Empire over Eurasia, whereas</p><p>‘global order’ could contain certain institutional arrangements established</p><p>by non- state actors that participate in global governance.</p><p>Kissinger (2014: 365) argues that the cohesion of an international order can</p><p>be challenged by ‘either a redefinition of legitimacy or a significant shift in</p><p>the balance of power’. According to this understanding, international order</p><p>is principally about two things. The first is the structure and distribution</p><p>of power among the major countries in the world in a given time period.</p><p>These countries’ individual capacities go up and down, and they associate</p><p>CHINA IN THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER</p><p>129</p><p>and compete with each other in formal or informal alliances. Therefore,</p><p>the power balance among them tends to change. The second is ‘rules of the</p><p>game’, which may find their expression in international law, international</p><p>institutions, and international treaties and agreements. These rules are seen as</p><p>legitimate and are expected to be observed by the international community,</p><p>especially by the major countries. In the next section I provide a brief</p><p>overview of these two aspects of the contemporary international order.</p><p>Power distribution and rules of the game</p><p>Contemporary power distribution: one, two, three and multi</p><p>To define the contemporary international order, it is necessary first to look at</p><p>the distribution of capabilities among major international powers. After the</p><p>end of the Second World War, and especially since the end of the Cold War,</p><p>countries that have actively participated in the world economy have obtained</p><p>more space and opportunities for development, thanks to the relatively open</p><p>international order and the historical process of globalization. On every</p><p>continent there are countries that have gradually lifted themselves from</p><p>poverty and ‘backwardness’ to present a thriving picture. The international</p><p>structure has evolved increasingly from the formerly vertical ‘bipolar’ or</p><p>‘unipolar’ one to a more horizontal one. Yet, it still has not become a ‘multi-</p><p>polar’ one. I would describe the current power structure as a ladder- shaped</p><p>‘one, two, three and multi’.</p><p>The ‘one’ is the United States. The United States is still the sole</p><p>superpower, and it will remain ranked far above other major countries in</p><p>terms of comprehensive national strength and international influence. US</p><p>power is growing faster than most other developed countries, though the gap</p><p>between the United States and China, India and other developing countries</p><p>is being narrowed. However, various factors, including its isolationism under</p><p>Donald Trump and its COVID- 19 debacle, have weakened US international</p><p>standing and its influence on world affairs.</p><p>The ‘two’ refers to China and the European Union (EU), two power</p><p>centres of a very different nature. China is an Asian regional power with</p><p>global influence, though its influence is limited by the United States, the</p><p>EU, Japan, India and Russia from different directions and at various levels.</p><p>China is the biggest trading partner of nearly all its neighbouring</p><p>countries.</p><p>Yet, it is still a regional power since its projections of geopolitical and</p><p>geoeconomic sway are focused on Asia. Chinese travellers and commercial</p><p>activities have now spread throughout the world. The influence of China</p><p>on other geographic regions, though still new and shallow, has expanded</p><p>dramatically. Chinese observers and strategists now habitually view China</p><p>as the world’s ‘No. 2’, next only to the United States, as China’s economic</p><p>size is smaller than that of the United States only (Zhao, 2019). In reality,</p><p>130</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>however, if one visits the Middle East (for example Saudi Arabia, Iran or</p><p>Turkey), Eastern Europe (for example Ukraine or Poland) or Latin America</p><p>(for example Brazil or Mexico), it is very obvious that the political influence</p><p>of China is far below ‘No. 2’. Measured by quality of economy, technology,</p><p>education, social welfare and ecological environment, China could hardly</p><p>be eligible to be No. 2 in the world. That said, during the 2020– 21 period,</p><p>China’s confidence has been buoyed by a series of stark contrasts with the</p><p>United States in terms of combating COVID- 19, as well as maintaining</p><p>domestic political stability and social governance.</p><p>Taken as a whole, the EU is the largest economic entity in the world today.</p><p>With 27 member states, the EU has built a common market and has the</p><p>largest amount of net wealth. It plays an indispensable role in maintaining</p><p>peace and stability in the western and southern parts of Eurasia, and in</p><p>regulating the global financial order and global governance. However,</p><p>because of restrictive bottlenecks such as unbalanced development, the</p><p>sovereign debt crisis, high unemployment rates, an ageing population, and</p><p>deepening social discrepancies, the EU will, for a long time, have a lower</p><p>economic growth rate compared with that of the United States and most</p><p>developing countries. The massive influx of immigrants has changed the</p><p>ethnic and religious composition of Europe, creating challenges, real or</p><p>perceived (or both), for social cohesion and integration. The ethos of the</p><p>EU is increasingly diversified and fragmented. Domestic politics has become</p><p>more polarized in almost every member state. The rising populism and</p><p>nationalism in the United Kingdom led to its withdrawal from the EU. The</p><p>untapped potential, if not the lack, of the EU’s common foreign and security</p><p>policy also significantly limits the EU’s international influence (Annen,</p><p>2020). Nonetheless, the positive conditions for future EU development</p><p>cannot be ignored. Eurozone states have relied on years of collaboration</p><p>to recover from the 2010– 12 debt crisis. The integration of the EU is not</p><p>likely to be reversed, despite the United Kingdom’s departure. In fact,</p><p>perhaps paradoxically, the organizing function of the EU may have been</p><p>strengthened because of Brexit. At the same time, the advanced technology</p><p>industry has become a major driving force of the economic development</p><p>of the EU. The EU also leads the world in improving energy efficiency and</p><p>building a green economy.</p><p>The ‘three’ refers to Japan, Russia and India. From the perspective of</p><p>comprehensive national strength, each of the three has its own comparative</p><p>advantages. In economic and technological terms, Japan is much more</p><p>advanced than Russia or India. Japan’s per capita income will continue to be</p><p>much higher than that of China for the foreseeable future. Although Japan</p><p>is not as confident as it used to be due to economic stagnation, an ageing</p><p>population, and the ascendancy of China, many in Japan still hope for the</p><p>‘normalization’ of the Japanese state, which means that the country can come</p><p>CHINA IN THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER</p><p>131</p><p>out of the shadow of the Second World War, become a strategic peer of the</p><p>United States, and play a more active role in international affairs (Teo, 2019).</p><p>Russia holds abundant natural resources, a vast territory, highly educated</p><p>citizens and great potential for development. Since its economic growth</p><p>heavily depends on the export of natural gas, oil and mineral products,</p><p>Russia is significantly affected by the fluctuating demands for energy and</p><p>other natural resources in the international market. The burden of social</p><p>welfare from an ageing population, the shortage of labour arising from a low</p><p>birth rate, and unbalanced regional development, to name just a few, are all</p><p>factors that overshadow Russia’s long- term economic future. With strong</p><p>military forces, Russia is an assertive and strident international player. The</p><p>annexation of Crimea, resistance to Western sanctions, and suppression of</p><p>pro- Western voices in Russia have all doubtless boosted President Vladimir</p><p>Putin’s prestige and popularity in Russia today. However, due to the obvious</p><p>slow- down of the Russian economy and several setbacks in diplomacy, the</p><p>real recovery of Russia’s power and status will take a long time.</p><p>India remains a dominant power in South Asia. The Indian population is</p><p>younger than that of Japan and Russia (as well as that of the United States</p><p>and China) and very energetic. India’s potential for economic development</p><p>is remarkably promising. Under the strong leadership of Prime Minister</p><p>Narendra Modi, India’s advantages in human resources and confidence in</p><p>international affairs have been stimulated. However, the system that Modi</p><p>inherited from the previous administrations has many disadvantages, such</p><p>as unbalanced economic development, a widening gap between rich and</p><p>poor, underdeveloped infrastructure, a shortage of energy, a backward</p><p>industrial system, a huge foreign trade deficit, significant red tape for</p><p>foreign investment, and acute regional protectionism. Moreover, there are</p><p>other negative factors, including frequent partisan and religious conflicts,</p><p>weak decision- making capacity due to frequent government shifts, and an</p><p>inefficient bureaucratic system. The disastrous impact of the second wave</p><p>of COVID- 19 on India in 2021 has exposed the many weaknesses in the</p><p>Indian political and social fabric (Guha, 2021). As a result, India’s economic</p><p>reform cannot bear fruit quickly.</p><p>The ‘multi’ in the international structure refers to numerous emerging</p><p>regional powers, including Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey,</p><p>Iran, South Africa and Nigeria. The Republic of Korea, Australia, Israel,</p><p>Saudi Arabia and some others can also be put into the category of important</p><p>regional powers. Moreover, there are countries such as Argentina, the</p><p>Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Kazakhstan and Ukraine that are</p><p>comparable to those listed earlier in terms of the size of territory, population,</p><p>resources, or potential for development.</p><p>It seems unlikely that the power distribution among major actors of the</p><p>world will change significantly in the next decade or so, perhaps except for</p><p>132</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>China’s impressively growing power. The size of the US economy will catch</p><p>up with that of the EU in a matter of years. The Japanese economy will</p><p>continue to lag behind those of the United States and the EU. However, Japan</p><p>will obtain advanced technological capabilities, and its national defence may</p><p>be strengthened. The economic gap between Russia and other developed</p><p>countries is unlikely to be narrowed. The economic competitiveness of</p><p>BRICS and other emerging economies as a whole will increase. Meanwhile,</p><p>all major powers will be very occupied with their own domestic challenges.</p><p>There is likely to be more continuity than change in the relationships</p><p>among the United States, China, the EU, Russia, Japan, India and other</p><p>major international actors. Despite the increased power and influence of the</p><p>developing countries as a whole, they are not formulating any visible alliances</p><p>that would resemble the blocs in the Cold War era. In contrast, the political,</p><p>military and economic alliances and associations of the developed</p><p>countries</p><p>formed after the Second World War are not expected to break down in the</p><p>near future, the difficulties in the relations between the Western countries</p><p>notwithstanding. The preponderance of Western values demonstrated by</p><p>these alliances is also obvious in the international system.</p><p>The political ties between China and Russia are becoming closer, owing</p><p>more to their respective domestic political imperatives than to geopolitical</p><p>considerations. The BRICS countries will make every effort to protect</p><p>their own rights and interests, and jointly pose a greater challenge to the</p><p>traditional domination of the Western countries in the international system.</p><p>But they would not join each other in creating a separate politico- economic</p><p>system or a set of institutions that would challenge directly the established</p><p>Western alliances and values.</p><p>Rules of the game: continuity and adjustment</p><p>While the international power structure turns more horizontal, the rules that</p><p>guide international relations will remain generally stable, albeit with certain</p><p>modifications. Rules guiding international relations in the areas of politics,</p><p>economy and security set in the UN Charter are widely acknowledged</p><p>and, more or less, followed by countries throughout the world. These rules</p><p>include: national sovereignty and non- interference with each other’s internal</p><p>affairs; safeguarding of human rights, freedom of religion, and opposition to</p><p>racial discrimination; open international markets, protection of intellectual</p><p>property rights, financial stability and product safety; peaceful solution</p><p>to territorial disputes, prevention of proliferation of weapons of massive</p><p>destruction (WMD), maintenance of nuclear safety, maritime security,</p><p>cyber security and space security; opposition to terrorism, smuggling, drug</p><p>trafficking, and illegal immigration; improving public health, protecting</p><p>the environment, and coping with climate change. These rules have been</p><p>CHINA IN THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER</p><p>133</p><p>recorded by a number of international organizations, mechanisms, treaties,</p><p>agreements and conferences. Even those countries which are seen by the</p><p>Western countries as ‘rogues’ and ‘outlaws’, such as North Korea and</p><p>Zimbabwe, do not openly challenge these principles and rules.</p><p>The stability and sustainability of the current international order does not</p><p>mean that the aforementioned rules will remain unchangeable. In reality,</p><p>plenty of new issues in the non- traditional security arena have emerged one</p><p>after another, such as cyber security, outer space and polar region security.</p><p>Regarding these new dimensions of global governance, appropriate ‘rules</p><p>of the game’ are yet to be established or improved. Due to technological</p><p>transformations, adjustments to international rules in such traditional areas</p><p>as trade, finance and investment are called for. For example, there emerged</p><p>certain new rules on international trade in the Trans- Pacific Partnership</p><p>(TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) propelled</p><p>by the Obama administration. If countries like Thailand are interested in</p><p>joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific</p><p>Partnership (CPTPP), the modified replacement of the TPP after the</p><p>US withdrawal in early 2017, they have to abide by the rules restricting</p><p>state- owned enterprises and forcefully protecting labour rights. The Asian</p><p>Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) initiated by China may also bring</p><p>about certain changes to the rules on international investment. The difficult</p><p>yet fruitless negotiation between China and the United States on the Bilateral</p><p>Investment Treaty (BIT) from 2013 to 2016, and the trade talks between</p><p>Beijing and the Trump administration from 2017 had been centred on issues</p><p>regarding rules such as open market access, fair competition, and protection</p><p>of intellectual property rights.</p><p>China’s general attitudes towards the international</p><p>order</p><p>During the 1970s– 80s, Deng Xiaoping, China’s de facto leader, raised the</p><p>topic of establishing a new international political and economic order on</p><p>several occasions (Deng, 1993). The political reports of the 14th (1992) and</p><p>15th (1997) National Congresses of the Communist Party of China (CPC)</p><p>proposed respectively the goals to ‘establish a new international order’ and</p><p>‘establish a new international political and economic order’. The report of</p><p>the 16th (2002) National Congress of the CPC set up the goal to ‘promote</p><p>the establishment of a fair and rational new international political and</p><p>economic order’.</p><p>With the acceleration of reform and opening up in China, a subtle yet</p><p>profound change has taken place in the attitude of the Chinese government</p><p>towards the current international order. In 2005 the State Council</p><p>Information Office of the PRC (2005) published a white paper, China’s</p><p>134</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>Peaceful Development Road, and put forward the notion that ‘China is working</p><p>hard to push the international political and economic order forward to a just</p><p>and rational direction’. Since then, no more official documents in China</p><p>have emphasized the necessity of establishing ‘a new international order’.</p><p>In 2011 the State Council Information Office (2011) published a white</p><p>paper, titled China’s Peaceful Development, which states that ‘we will actively</p><p>engage in handling multilateral issues and addressing global issues, undertake</p><p>our due international obligations and play a constructive role in making the</p><p>international political and economic order fairer and more equitable’. This can</p><p>be interpreted as saying that the current international order is not generally</p><p>unfair and unreasonable, but needs some reform. This white paper, which</p><p>systematically interprets China’s attitude towards the world, also mentions</p><p>that ‘economic globalisation and revolution in science and technology have</p><p>created historical conditions for more countries to revitalise themselves by</p><p>pursuing economic development and mutually beneficial cooperation, and</p><p>made it possible for more developing countries to embark on the path of</p><p>rapid development’. This seems to suggest that in the existing international</p><p>system and under its international political and economic order, it is possible</p><p>for developing countries to achieve the objective of modernization as long</p><p>as they seize the opportunities of economic globalization and rely on their</p><p>own strengths for innovation.</p><p>The Chinese government has repeatedly emphasized its positive attitude</p><p>towards the current international order. For example, in May 2013 Premier</p><p>Li Keqiang said that ‘interdependence is a defining feature in state- to- state</p><p>relations in this era of globalisation. China is a beneficiary and a defender of</p><p>the existing international order and international system, and stands ready</p><p>to work with India and other countries to advance reform of the system’</p><p>(Li, 2013). In April 2015, in a meeting with Lionel Barber, editor- in- chief</p><p>of The Financial Times, Premier Li Keqiang said that the objective of China</p><p>initiating the AIIB ‘is not to reinvent the wheel. Rather it is intended to be</p><p>a supplement to the current international financial system’, and that ‘China</p><p>was deeply involved in establishing the postwar international order from the</p><p>very outset. … So China has been a beneficiary of the current international</p><p>system in terms of both peace and development. … So there is no such</p><p>thing as breaking the existing order’ (Li, 2015). Similarly, Jin Liqun (2015),</p><p>secretary- general of the AIIB Multilateral Interim Secretariat, claimed that</p><p>the ‘AIIB is a supplement, rather than substitute for the World Bank and</p><p>Asian Development Bank; AIIB is an improvement and promotion of current</p><p>international financial order, rather than subversion’.</p><p>From 2018, the Chinese government has frequently stressed its</p><p>commitment to multilateralism in international relations and economic</p><p>globalization to safeguard</p><p>peace and development for all, vis- à- vis the US</p><p>Trump administration’s ‘America First’ banner and unilateral and protectionist</p><p>CHINA IN THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER</p><p>135</p><p>moves (Wang, 2020a). That ‘the world is undergoing profound changes</p><p>unseen in a century’ has become China’s official baseline assessment for</p><p>the general trend of world politics. Such a trend is perceived to have been</p><p>accelerated by the COVID- 19 pandemic and featured by sustained ‘chaos’</p><p>or transformation since late 2020 (He, 2020; Zhang, J., 2020; Xi, 2021).</p><p>Yet, time and trend are believed to be on China’s side, with ‘the East rising</p><p>and the West declining’ (dong sheng xi jiang) (He, 2020), however vague this</p><p>narrative sounds. Chinese elites also see China as a nation speaking for the</p><p>developing countries in the world.</p><p>Increasingly, China identifies itself as acting on behalf of the ‘international</p><p>community’ as well. President Xi Jinping frequently calls for the establishment</p><p>of ‘a community with a shared future for humankind’, where China will be</p><p>taking a leading position. As Wang Yi (2020) stated, China is ‘spearheading</p><p>the reform of the global governance system, making globalisation more</p><p>inclusive and beneficial for all and the international order fairer and</p><p>more equitable’.</p><p>Based on the statements by Chinese leaders, senior officials and the</p><p>Chinese government, one can conclude that although China defines itself as</p><p>a participant, facilitator and contributor in the international order, it holds</p><p>unique views and expectations for reforms and changes in the order. Given</p><p>current power balance and distribution, it may not be feasible or practical</p><p>for China to ‘start all over again’ and set up a tangible counterweight to</p><p>the Western world. However, China obviously hopes to see not only the</p><p>increase of its own capabilities and power projection, but also the growth in</p><p>strength of other BRICS countries, particularly Russia. China will enhance</p><p>relations and strengthen cooperation with other developing countries as well</p><p>as Russia to advocate the multi- polarization of the world. It is self- evident</p><p>that a multipolar structure would appear only when US power and influence</p><p>were considerably weakened. It is subject to debate, however, whether it is</p><p>China’s strategic intention, and in China’s long- term national interest, to</p><p>undermine Washington’s position in world affairs.</p><p>Differentiated positions on the ‘rules of the game’</p><p>If international order has economic, security and political dimensions, it is</p><p>relatively easy for China to integrate into the economic part of that order.</p><p>The argument that the main reason for the ‘backwardness’ of the developing</p><p>countries was the irrational international economic order was popular in</p><p>China during the 1970s– 90s. Therefore, a fundamental way to solve the</p><p>contradictions between the North and the South and to narrow the gap</p><p>between them would be to break and wipe out control and predatory</p><p>exploitation by the developed countries and to establish a new international</p><p>economic order. Essentially, it followed the reasoning of the ‘dependence</p><p>136</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>theory’ that was popular among some political observers in the Third World</p><p>at that time. However, the historical experience of China, which has achieved</p><p>rapid development by actively participating in economic globalization over</p><p>the previous four decades, has challenged this traditional argument.</p><p>China now approves of such rules as the liberalization of trade and</p><p>investment. However, to some extent, its views and practices conflict with</p><p>the current rules in international trade, investment and finance, especially in</p><p>relation to the role of the government in the economy and society. China is</p><p>not satisfied with what it regards as an insufficient share of the voting power</p><p>in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Asian</p><p>Development Bank and other financial organizations (Zhang, F., 2020).</p><p>Many Chinese hold that the United States is the ‘ringleader’ who caused</p><p>such unfairness and that existing international economic institutions and rules</p><p>are, to a large extent, the manifestation of the strength of the United States</p><p>and serve mainly US interests. In June– July 2015 China’s stock market (A</p><p>share) fell sharply. Quite a few Chinese officials, business people and analysts</p><p>were convinced that the market turmoil was the result of US behind- the-</p><p>scenes manipulations and short selling. This highlights the deep distrust of</p><p>some Chinese elites as regards the role of the United States (Lieberthal and</p><p>Wang, 2012). To what extent the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which</p><p>China has been developing since 2013, will be different from the standards</p><p>and rules in investment and trade followed by the industrialized countries</p><p>remains to be seen.</p><p>In the security arena, China holds differentiated attitudes. It joins</p><p>other major powers in the commitment of preventing the proliferation</p><p>of WMDs (Johnston, 2008), and thus has cooperated with others on the</p><p>denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the Iranian nuclear issue. China</p><p>has also taken an active part in the UN peacekeeping operations (Foot, 2020).</p><p>It has played by the rules in many of the non- traditional security and ‘high</p><p>frontier’ domains, such as climate change, environment protection, global</p><p>health, outer space security, maritime safety and security, counter- terrorism</p><p>and anti- piracy operations, as well as cracking down on smuggling, drug</p><p>trafficking and illegal immigration.</p><p>While joining a growing number of international coordination mechanisms</p><p>in security issues, China also demands revisions of some rules in line with</p><p>its own interests. China pursues a policy of non- alignment and expresses</p><p>dissatisfaction with the US- led military alliances and related arrangements</p><p>in Asia, being especially antipathetic to the strengthening of the US– Japan</p><p>military alliance. The majority of Chinese security experts point out that</p><p>the US military presence and the security alliances it leads in the Asia- Pacific</p><p>region are mainly targeted at China, and their purpose is to counterbalance</p><p>China’s ever- growing defence capabilities (Shi, Y., 2021). US arms sales</p><p>to Taiwan are viewed as encouraging ‘Taiwan independence’ and part of a</p><p>CHINA IN THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER</p><p>137</p><p>conspiracy to split China. Usually, Chinese commentators do not engage in</p><p>virtue signalling when it comes to US military activities in the Middle East,</p><p>South Asia, Africa and Latin America. They would only express the hope</p><p>that the United States respects the sovereignty of the countries concerned.</p><p>But for the enduring existence and function of the North Atlantic Treaty</p><p>Organization (NATO), China holds a critical position similar to that of Russia.</p><p>In recent years, China– US relations have soured over the South China</p><p>Sea disputes, in which the two governments are applying different rules.</p><p>To China, the crux of the disputes is its national sovereignty and territorial</p><p>integrity, as it claims that all of the islands, rocks, reefs and shales in the</p><p>South China Sea, with their adjacent waters, belong to China, and therefore</p><p>the basic rules there are related to sovereignty. To the United States, it is</p><p>freedom of navigation in accordance with international law that is at stake.</p><p>The real problem there between China and the United States is their strategic</p><p>competition taking the form of what rules should apply.</p><p>John Ikenberry and many other Western scholars characterize the existing</p><p>international order as ‘liberal’. In fact, the political dimension of the order,</p><p>in which Western values and ideas have prevailed, is more strongly resisted</p><p>by China than other dimensions. China finds itself much more comfortable</p><p>under the principles of state sovereignty and non- interference in other</p><p>countries’ internal affairs, as established in the UN Charter. Since the end</p><p>of the Cold War, especially since the ‘colour</p><p>these</p><p>are exceptions that prove the rule.</p><p>INTRODUCTION</p><p>7</p><p>Second, there seems to be a lack of the ‘surprise’ factor in China’s steady</p><p>rise over a long period of time, in contrast with the Cold War’s sudden and</p><p>unexpected end (Gaddis, 1992/ 93: 5). Throughout the past few decades, the</p><p>rise of China has constantly remained in the news headlines. Treated either</p><p>with some scepticism, or as a normal instance of the rise of great powers, it</p><p>seems to have been a fixture in the public discourse. Often likened to the</p><p>rise of previous powers, it is almost taken for granted that the same power</p><p>transition logic should apply. That is, ‘ “Western” theoretical frameworks</p><p>[continue to] have much to say about international relations in Asia’ or China,</p><p>and such frameworks only need to be more ‘context sensitive’ in terms of</p><p>their variables when applied to Asia/ China (Ikenberry and Mastanduno,</p><p>2003: 19).</p><p>A third factor may have to do with an Orientalist assumption of ‘Chinese</p><p>exceptionalism’. While some see little need for theorizing China’s rise</p><p>because the phenomenon seems nothing new or unusual, others see it as</p><p>merely one distinctive case, so much so that its ‘unique 3,000- year history</p><p>of essential isolation locates itself outside the purview of any general theory</p><p>that might be applicable to other states’ (Rosenau, 1994: 524). For instance,</p><p>perceiving Chinese foreign policy behaviour as ‘dictated by a peculiar</p><p>operational code of conduct’, Kim (1994: 402– 3) argues that ‘theorizing</p><p>about Chinese foreign policy becomes an exceptionally daunting task, and</p><p>the case against joining the theoretical quest seems rather compelling’.</p><p>The treatment of China’s rise as something either routine or unique reflects</p><p>a broader problem in mainstream IR theory, namely a ‘Columbus syndrome’</p><p>(Kavalski, 2018a: 1– 15). The 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus set</p><p>in motion a period of European conquest. Columbus failed to recognize</p><p>the ‘newness’ of the ‘New World’ that he stumbled upon; he also refused</p><p>to recognize that the Amerindians spoke a different language from him.</p><p>Instead, he merely assumed that the indigenous populations were unable</p><p>to speak. Thus,</p><p>Columbus’ failure to recognize the diversity of languages permits</p><p>him, when he confronts a foreign tongue, only two possible, and</p><p>complementary, forms of behavior: to acknowledge it as a language but</p><p>to refuse to believe it is different; or to acknowledge its difference but to refuse</p><p>to admit it is a language. (Todorov 1984: 30; emphasis added)</p><p>In this respect, Columbus ‘knows in advance what he will find’ (Todorov,</p><p>1984: 17) and acknowledges only the things that fit his preconceived model,</p><p>while ignoring all the aspects that seemed incongruent.</p><p>The implication here is that IR theory’s knowledge production suffers</p><p>from a similar condition to that of Columbus. That is, when it encounters</p><p>‘other’ concepts, practices, and experience of the ‘international’, IR more</p><p>8</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>often than not reverts to the prism of its Columbus syndrome: either it</p><p>recognizes them as narratives about world politics but does not acknowledge that they</p><p>are different; or acknowledges that they are different, but refuses to admit that they</p><p>are part of IR (thereby relegating them to fields such as cultural studies, area studies</p><p>and anthropology). As a result, the realities, complexities and dynamism of</p><p>global life are reduced to fit pre- scripted (and prescribed) storylines (Kavalski,</p><p>2018b: 268– 91). In this setting, considering that the encounters between IR</p><p>theory and Asia more generally have long been plagued by a broader pattern</p><p>of ‘narrow vision, slow awakening to an area long overlooked, and belated</p><p>theoretical reorientation’ (Rozman, 2015: 1), the failure to take China’s rise</p><p>as a significant theory- generating event in IR becomes less baffling.</p><p>The aforementioned ‘Global IR’ project – which first emerged in an</p><p>influential Special Issue of International Relations of the Asia- Pacific – has begun</p><p>to call into question the ethnocentric limitations of mainstream Western</p><p>IR theory (see Acharya and Buzan, 2007; Acharya, 2014b). It has drawn</p><p>attention to two interlinked aspects of Western centrism in IR theory: first,</p><p>its overwhelming focus on Western history and experience; and, second, the</p><p>dominance of Western scholarship in IR theory. Thus far, the ‘Global IR’</p><p>project’s emphasis has been particularly on addressing the second dimension</p><p>of Western centrism, as exemplified by its call for better ‘engag[ing] IR</p><p>scholarship from the Global South’ (Acharya and Buzan, 2017: 6– 13). It is</p><p>no doubt important to bring in more ‘non- Western voices’; however, at the</p><p>same time including seemingly ‘non- Western’ issues (for example China’s</p><p>rise) as a theoretical concern equally deserves attention.</p><p>As noted earlier, the Chinese IR theory debate has sought to put China’s</p><p>rise as its theoretical core (Qin, 2005), and some Chinese theorists have</p><p>made important contribution in this regard (for example Zhao, 2005; Yan,</p><p>2011; 2015; Qin, 2016; Zhao, 2016). But we argue that China’s rise is not</p><p>a purely Chinese phenomenon or even a regional issue which can be fully</p><p>grasped from a ‘Chinese’ or ‘Asian’ perspective. Rather, as a complex global</p><p>phenomenon, it should be the subject of theorizing from global as well as</p><p>‘Chinese’ perspectives. Over- emphasizing Chinese/ Asian perspectives may</p><p>inadvertently reinforce the very bias that ‘non- Western’ is non- mainstream,</p><p>particular, regional and local, whereas ‘Western’ is mainstream, universal and</p><p>core (Johnston, 2012: 56). Such dichotomies could hinder the opportunity</p><p>for cross- fertilization between ‘non- Western’ and ‘Western’ sources in the</p><p>understanding of China’s rise. Without underestimating the important and</p><p>unique role Chinese IR theorists can play, China’s rise is nevertheless too</p><p>important a global issue to be left for Chinese IR theorists alone to theorize.</p><p>In any case, what matters is not just whose theories are relevant and ought</p><p>to be included, but also what theories or perspectives can broaden our</p><p>understanding of both the increasingly complex worlds and China’s complex</p><p>and growing roles within them.</p><p>INTRODUCTION</p><p>9</p><p>Beyond theory testing, beyond IR</p><p>By now, it should have become clearer that by ‘theorizing China’s rise’ we</p><p>do not mean applied theoretical testing (Pan and Kavalski, 2018). Theory</p><p>testing, as Iain Johnston (2012: 58) notes, involves ‘bringing more detailed</p><p>empirical evidence to bear on these debates, perhaps helping to clarify</p><p>which theories, hypotheses, and findings are more plausible than others, and</p><p>confirming whether there are clear temporal and spatial limits on theory</p><p>generalization’. It is often driven by specific theoretical concerns, and its</p><p>testing case is reduced to a source of raw data which may already be framed</p><p>in accordance with the theory being tested (Acharya and Buzan, 2017: 16).</p><p>Thus, one problem is that ‘If the contents of observations depend on the</p><p>theory that should be tested, it is self- validating rather than a real test’</p><p>(Saariluoma, 1997: 148 n 24). The upshot is that rather than challenging IR</p><p>theory’s ethnocentrism, testing ‘Western’ theory through case studies from</p><p>the ‘non- Western world’ is likely to ‘reinforce the image of area studies as</p><p>little more than provider of raw data to Western theory’ (Acharya, 2014: 650).</p><p>Therefore, by ‘theorizing China’s rise’ we mean efforts to explore</p><p>the potential understudied theoretical implications of China’s rise for</p><p>understanding not only China’s rise but also international relations more</p><p>broadly. So instead of taking the meaning of China’s rise as self- evident or</p><p>debating empirically whether China has been rising or whether its rise will be</p><p>peaceful, the main focus of theorizing would be on what this phenomenon</p><p>is or is not, how such a phenomenon may present new conceptual and</p><p>theoretical challenges and opportunities,</p><p>revolutions’, ‘Arab Spring’ and</p><p>similar political events that took place in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern</p><p>Europe and some states of the former Soviet Union, China has become</p><p>increasingly alert to and guarded concerning what it regards as Western</p><p>schemes to undermine the legitimacy of the CPC and the political order</p><p>that it maintains in China. Beijing has been tightening controls over the</p><p>Internet, NGOs and media, including social media, and has launched media</p><p>campaigns against Western values. Internationally, Beijing calls for the</p><p>‘democratisation of international relations’ as it believes that the developing</p><p>countries greatly outnumber the developed countries and that the former</p><p>should have a larger say than the latter, which is what the Chinese define</p><p>as ‘democracy of international relations’ (Shi, B., 2021).</p><p>In sum, China expects changes in four aspects of the contemporary</p><p>international order: (1) strengthening the status of China, other BRICS</p><p>nations, and the developing countries in the international system;</p><p>(2) enhancing China’s position in international economic affairs; (3) reducing</p><p>the influence of the US- led security alliances and military arrangements in</p><p>the Asia- Pacific; and (4) resisting the ‘wave of democratisation’ instigated by</p><p>the Western countries and their intervention in the internal affairs of other</p><p>countries, and championing democracy of international relations.</p><p>In all four aspects, China has made tangible efforts to promote</p><p>transformation, as shown in the following examples: China has put forward</p><p>138</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>and gradually implemented the colossal BRI; championed the establishment</p><p>of the AIIB and the New Development Bank (NDB); established the Silk</p><p>Road Fund; promoted cooperation among the member states of the Shanghai</p><p>Cooperation Organization and invited India and Pakistan as new members;</p><p>promoted economic cooperation of the Great Mekong Subregion (GMS)</p><p>Cooperation, and hosted the Senior Officials’ Meeting of the Lancang-</p><p>Mekong River Dialogue and Cooperation; played a more positive role</p><p>in the G20, Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), China- Africa</p><p>Cooperation Forum, and other international institutions and mechanisms;</p><p>proposed a new Asian security concept by hosting the Conference on</p><p>Interaction and Confidence- Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and other</p><p>security forums; and expanded overseas political influence by way of</p><p>intensifying cultural communication, economic cooperation and foreign</p><p>aid, and so on.</p><p>The results of China’s efforts in promoting changes in the international</p><p>order are substantial. For example, 57 countries, notably the United</p><p>Kingdom, Germany and many other European countries, together with</p><p>South Korea, India and Russia, have become founding members of the</p><p>AIIB despite obstructions from the United States. This was hailed as ‘a</p><p>major victory’ of China’s diplomacy and is expected to make an impact on</p><p>the present international financial order. The effect of some other efforts</p><p>is less perceptible. For instance, Andrew Nathan (2015), a China specialist</p><p>at Columbia University, notes that ‘China displays no missionary impulse</p><p>to promote authoritarianism. But this does not mean that its policies are</p><p>inconsequential for the fate of democracy.’ As Nathan observes, by displaying</p><p>China’s own experiences of maintaining domestic stability and sustaining</p><p>economic development, and by giving aid to some ‘authoritarian regimes’,</p><p>China has helped block the trend of ‘democratisation’ in these countries. It</p><p>could take many years to find out the results of China’s interests in promoting</p><p>its ‘community of shared destiny of humankind’ in many parts of the world.</p><p>‘Co- evolution’: responding to disorder by</p><p>strengthening order</p><p>In spite of significant upheavals, the contemporary international order appears</p><p>still to be undergoing a relatively stable historical phase of its evolution. No</p><p>subversive or revolutionary changes appear likely in the foreseeable future</p><p>either in the power balance among the major countries or in the legitimacy</p><p>of the established rules that regulate their international behaviour. Yet it is</p><p>undeniable that the United States and China, two of the largest and most</p><p>powerful sovereign countries in the international system, have been engaged</p><p>in an increasingly intensive strategic competition. As Kissinger (2011: 528)</p><p>puts it, ‘an aspect of strategic tension in the current world situation resides</p><p>CHINA IN THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER</p><p>139</p><p>in the Chinese fear that America is seeking to contain China – paralleled</p><p>by the American concern that China is seeking to expel the United States</p><p>from Asia’.</p><p>To me, the focal point of the strategic competition and rivalry between the</p><p>United States and China is on the relationship between ‘two orders’ – China’s</p><p>‘restrictive’ domestic order maintained by the strong, resolute CPC leadership</p><p>and the ‘liberal’ international order that the United States is simultaneously</p><p>advocating and leading (Wang, 2015). Both the United States and China tend</p><p>to think that their own side is on the defensive while the other side is on</p><p>the offensive. The Chinese general public believes that the Western world,</p><p>led by the United States, intends to undermine China’s political stability,</p><p>economic prosperity and national unity by subverting the leadership of the</p><p>CPC. What the United States does in other parts of the world is of secondary</p><p>importance. The American politicians and strategists, in contrast, care less</p><p>about what China does domestically (perhaps with the exceptions of Hong</p><p>Kong and Xinjiang), and more about China’s international behaviour, which</p><p>they see as increasingly assertive in challenging the world order.</p><p>Underpinning the obvious Sino- American competition for power is the</p><p>not yet clearly demarcated contest of values. Such normative competition is</p><p>manifested in the struggle over the legitimacy of international rules. Former</p><p>US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (2014), in her review of Kissinger’s</p><p>World Order, remarks:</p><p>For an international order to take hold and last, Kissinger argues, it must</p><p>relate ‘power to legitimacy.’ To that end, Kissinger, the famous realist,</p><p>sounds surprisingly idealistic. Even when there are tensions between</p><p>our values and other objectives, America, he reminds us, succeeds by</p><p>standing up for our values, not shirking them, and leads by engaging</p><p>peoples and societies, the sources of legitimacy, not governments alone.</p><p>If our might helps secure the balance of power that underpins the</p><p>international order, our values and principles help make it acceptable</p><p>and attractive to others.</p><p>These remarks demonstrate that American strategists, ‘realists’ and ‘idealists’</p><p>alike, tend to agree that the legitimacy of America’s foreign policy goals</p><p>must be pursued by intervening in the domestic affairs of other countries,</p><p>not only through interactions with their governmental counterparts, but</p><p>also with individual citizens. By contrast, the Chinese concept of legitimacy</p><p>of the international order is centred on sovereign states represented by their</p><p>governments, which reflects China’s domestic sensitivities and the way China</p><p>conducts its diplomacy in state- to- state relations.</p><p>Despite their widening differences in defining the legitimacy of</p><p>international order and their inevitable contest for power, China and the</p><p>140</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>United States are both beneficiaries, facilitators, builders and contributors</p><p>of the present order. Their paths of development are not going in squarely</p><p>opposite directions. They could achieve what Kissinger (2011: 526) calls</p><p>‘co- evolution’, which means that ‘both countries pursue their domestic</p><p>imperatives, cooperating where possible, and adjust their relations to</p><p>minimize conflict’.</p><p>Nothing could be more illustrative of President Barack Obama’s</p><p>expectations of China’s role in the</p><p>and to what extent it may unsettle</p><p>existing assumptions in IR theory. Questions that may be asked include, for</p><p>example, in what sense have existing conceptual, theoretical and ontological</p><p>assumptions been adequate in understanding this phenomenon? How does</p><p>China’s rise theoretically challenge the Westphalian world? What is new</p><p>about its rise, in comparison to the rise of great powers in the past? Are</p><p>changes reflected in this phenomenon indicative of some broader and more</p><p>fundamental transformation in the world as a whole? Can China’s relations</p><p>with the rest of the world continue to be understood in terms of inter- national</p><p>relations? Have the conventional theoretical observations of China’s use of</p><p>power been vindicated? If not, what does this say about our conception</p><p>of power in general and Chinese power in particular? What does it mean</p><p>and entail to know China? Is it possible to produce objective knowledge</p><p>about China and its international behaviour? And what do these theoretical</p><p>reflections mean for our understanding of world politics in general?</p><p>While not all of these questions (and there are more) can be examined in</p><p>this volume, the immediate purpose here is to illustrate the kind of questions</p><p>that may come under the ambit of what we mean by ‘theorizing China’s</p><p>rise’. In doing so, we adopt a less conventional conception of theory as well.</p><p>10</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>For example, we are less interested in the function of theory as primarily</p><p>predicting regularities (Waltz, 1979: 68) since such theory is ill- equipped to</p><p>understand change, unpredictability, temporality and complexity (Kavalski,</p><p>2015; Shih and Ikeda, 2016; Nordin et al, 2019). Instead, our conception</p><p>of theory is closer to the meta- theoretical, ontological and epistemological</p><p>rethinking of IR, which may include challenging the notion of ‘international</p><p>relations’ itself. This is in part what we mean by ‘beyond IR’, in search</p><p>of global political and social theory about world politics. This should not</p><p>be misunderstood as a suggestion that the contributors to this edited</p><p>volume subscribe to a uniform understanding of what amounts to theory</p><p>or theorizing. Rather, the diversity that follows is only possible when we</p><p>eschew a rather narrow view of theory from the outset.</p><p>This theorizing inevitably has implications for particular IR theories. Yet</p><p>its main purpose is not about validating or testing a particular theory, or</p><p>a particular national school of IR theory for that matter. It is more about</p><p>reflecting on more meta- theoretical issues such as identity, power, knowledge</p><p>production, ontology, relationality and spirituality. It shares some of the</p><p>attempts in Global IR to ‘develop concepts and approaches from non-</p><p>Western contexts on their own terms and to apply them not only locally,</p><p>but also to other contexts, including the larger global canvas’ (Acharya,</p><p>2014a: 650). In doing so, it challenges the myth that ‘only the Westphalian</p><p>Self can theorise about the Rest, not the other way around’ and recognizes</p><p>the ‘critical role [of the non- Western world] in making world politics’ (Ling,</p><p>2014: 92). Nonetheless, it is not our primary aim to challenge the ‘Western</p><p>theoretical dominance’ (Acharya, 2014b: 59, emphasis added) as such, nor</p><p>is it mainly about bringing Chinese ideas into IR theory (Qin, 2009; Yan,</p><p>2011). In fact, we reject the very dichotomies between ‘the West’ and ‘the</p><p>rest’ and between ‘the West’ and ‘China’, and seek to embrace all relevant</p><p>theoretical ideas, be they from China, the West or elsewhere, so long as</p><p>they are able to shed light on how China’s rise can be best understood and</p><p>how such understanding may help us better conceptualize world politics.</p><p>As well as seeing the need to overcome the Western/ non- Western</p><p>dichotomy, we advocate the need to go beyond the discipline of IR in order</p><p>to enrich and stimulate our theorizing of China’s rise (and, by extension,</p><p>other facets of global life). China is never an exclusively IR property, and</p><p>its existence is conditioned not only by IR scholars’ favourite factors, such</p><p>as the international system, the national interest or power, but also by the</p><p>contingent interactions between culture/ civilization, geography, history,</p><p>politics, economy, demography, globalization and social change more broadly.</p><p>So the study of China’s rise cannot be confined to the theoretical and</p><p>conceptual repository of IR, however intellectually rich that repository has</p><p>now become. This point should not be controversial, as interdisciplinarity</p><p>is the norm rather than the exception in the development of all academic</p><p>INTRODUCTION</p><p>11</p><p>disciplines. Going beyond IR in theorizing China’s rise does not mean</p><p>abandoning IR altogether. It means broadening a discipline whose identity</p><p>is, or should be, from the beginning multidisciplinary and fluid in nature</p><p>(Cudworth et al, 2018; Kavalski, 2020). In this context, we hope that when</p><p>our readers read the individual chapters included in this edited volume, they</p><p>will keep an open mind and welcome unfamiliar concepts and theoretical</p><p>frameworks from other fields as potential sources of stimulation and cross-</p><p>fertilization, rather than dismissing them out of hand as alien or arcane.</p><p>Outline of the book</p><p>This section provides a brief outline of the chapters included in this volume.</p><p>For the purposes of organization, the contributions have been divided into</p><p>two parts – the first one details theoretical innovations that step outside the</p><p>Eurocentric analytical paths, while the second one critically reflects on some</p><p>established frameworks of analysis in relation to China’s rise. Of course, it</p><p>has to be admitted that such division is schematic and, as the readers of the</p><p>volume will soon recognize, there are multiple interactions, dialogues and</p><p>ideational continuities between the chapters in the two parts.</p><p>In Chapter 1, John Agnew draws critical attention to the underlying</p><p>geographies of knowledge dominating mainstream explanation and</p><p>understanding of IR. His point of departure is the suggestion that theories</p><p>arise in distinctive geographical and historical contexts rather than reflecting</p><p>universal experience. Representing a clear challenge to the conventional</p><p>wisdom in IR theory, China’s rise opens up the possibility of thinking</p><p>about theory in terms of contextual theorizing based on understanding the</p><p>contingencies between global pressures and local/ national agency. Thus,</p><p>China’s international relations are best theorized in terms of the politics</p><p>of choice between alternative framings of China in the world rather than</p><p>as the invariable outcome of some seemingly general theory that is in fact</p><p>the projection of a current hegemony and its particular understandings of</p><p>that world.</p><p>In Chapter 2, the late L.H.M. Ling offers a poignant critique of what she</p><p>labelled ‘Westphalian IR’. She argued that the disciplinary mainstream has</p><p>no other option but to entrench dichotomized deadlocks such as ‘China’</p><p>versus the ‘West’. Ling argues that in order to break out of such stultifying</p><p>bifurcations, scholars need to emancipate IR spiritually, not just analytically,</p><p>politically or even ethically. For Ling, this meant having an ‘open mind and</p><p>heart when encountering difference through others’. Epistemic compassion</p><p>epitomizes this process. Two pre- Westphalian traditions provide a means and</p><p>an example: Advaita monism and Daoist trialectics.</p><p>Chapter 3 offers a contribution to the relational theorizing of China’s</p><p>rise. The point of departure for this study is twofold: first, that the criticism</p><p>12</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>of substantialism offered by the Anglophone literature on the relational</p><p>turn fails to overcome its Euro- centrism; and second, that by subscribing</p><p>to the epistemic duality of the West versus the non- West, the Sinophone</p><p>literature has aborted the political (and ethical) promise of the relationality</p><p>which it seeks to uncover. Emilian Kavalski deploys the notion of guanxi as</p><p>an analytical bridge between the Anglophone and the Sinophone strands of</p><p>the relational turn in IR. His intent is to amplify the intrinsic relationality</p><p>both of global life and the realms of IR.</p><p>In Chapter 4, Astrid Nordin and Graham Smith focus on the concept</p><p>and practices of friendship in IR theory, in light of the Chinese portrayal</p><p>of China as a new and friendlier kind of great power. Their claim is that</p><p>the analytical outlines of such conversations on friendship can contribute to</p><p>the development of genuinely relational IR thinking. Simultaneously, this</p><p>mode of relational theorizing moves beyond the traditional focus on ossified</p><p>forms of friendship and enmity centred on the anxious self. Nordin and</p><p>Smith emphasize that the vantage point of friendship suggests a way out of</p><p>the dangers of theorizing Self in contrast to Other, and reopens the possibility</p><p>to conceptualize Self with Other.</p><p>Chapter 5 suggests that the theorization of China’s rise offers a unique</p><p>opportunity for the epistemological re- worlding of both Western and non-</p><p>Western sites. To that end, Yih- Jye Hwang, Raoul Bunskoek and Chih- yu</p><p>Shih reassess the concept of tianxia – probably one of the most emblematic</p><p>notions associated with the study of China. The chapter (i) demonstrates</p><p>how the concept of tianxia constitutes a post- Western site; (ii) introduces</p><p>different interpretations of tianxia; and (iii) discusses how both the concept</p><p>itself and its contemporary Chinese interpretations have been received by</p><p>the Anglophone mainstream of IR.</p><p>The second part of this volume opens with a contribution by Wang Jisi</p><p>in Chapter 6. His study offers a thoughtful consideration of both China’s</p><p>attitudes towards and its impact on the existing patterns of world affairs. At</p><p>the same time, this chapter offers a detailed outline of the basic analytical</p><p>concepts that go into the explanation and understanding of China, its</p><p>rise, as well as both its potential and actual effects on international order.</p><p>Wang’s suggestion is that theorizing China’s rise will do well to engage</p><p>policy discourses and, especially, the impact of such discourses on the IR</p><p>perspectives that their narratives inform.</p><p>In Chapter 7, Barry Buzan draws attention to the strengths and weaknesses</p><p>of the ES theory for understanding China and its rise. On the one hand, his</p><p>study explores the conditions under which ES theory can offer a meaningful</p><p>engagement with China’s rise. On the other hand, Buzan outlines the</p><p>theoretical challenges posed by China to the established analytical frameworks</p><p>of ES theory. In particular, he highlights the issues of ‘hierarchy’ and ‘face’</p><p>as two challenges that the country’s ‘Chinese characteristics’ pose both for</p><p>INTRODUCTION</p><p>13</p><p>policy makers and for how the ES thinks about international society. In</p><p>this respect, Buzan’s chapter can be read as a programmatic paper outlining</p><p>the ways in which ES theory needs to adapt if it is to address meaningfully</p><p>China’s rise.</p><p>In Chapter 8 Hung- jen Wang examines the claim that China’s rise infuses</p><p>an ‘Eastphalian’ normative framework for the study and observation of world</p><p>affairs. Apart from a mere contrast with the ‘Westphalian’ commitments</p><p>underpinning the IR mainstream, there appears to be little agreement</p><p>about what such Eastphalian framework entails and how China’s growing</p><p>prominence in global life impacts on its ramifications. Advocating a hybrid</p><p>Westphalian- Eastphalian approach, which dispenses with the flawed</p><p>binaries informing the Western- versus- non- Western IR analyses, Wang’s</p><p>analysis offers a thoughtful analysis of the implications of the term and its</p><p>contributions to the explanation and understanding of China’s rise.</p><p>Challenging the mono- causal, mono- directional and mono- disciplinary</p><p>nature of existing theories in their explanations of China’s rise, Christopher</p><p>McNally in Chapter 9 argues that a multi- level, open dialectical approach</p><p>is needed to better understand Sino- capitalism dialectic underpinning</p><p>China’s political economy and the dialectic resulting from Sino- capitalism’s</p><p>global emergence, which involves a melding of neo- statist and neoliberal</p><p>precepts to forge a new transitional politico- economic order. In doing so,</p><p>he criticizes the dichotomous views of China’s rise afforded by the realist</p><p>and neoliberal institutionalist theories. He argues that the complex and</p><p>dynamic nature of China’s rising global power lies in the emergence of a</p><p>new form of capitalism centred on China that is global in reach yet differs</p><p>deeply in its organizing principles and ideational precepts from established</p><p>forms of capitalism in the West.</p><p>Chapter 10 tackles the ontological inadequacies of mainstream IR to</p><p>account for China’s rise. As Chengxin Pan demonstrates, the disciplinary</p><p>shortcomings are predicated on IR’s Cartesian/ Newtonian ontological</p><p>commitments. In order to rectify such defects, Pan proposes an alternative,</p><p>holographic relational ontology. This ontology posits that the world exists</p><p>fundamentally as holographic relations, in which a part is a microcosmic</p><p>reflection of its larger whole(s) (Pan, 2020). As such, China’s rise is</p><p>best understood as a phenomenon of holographic transition, in which</p><p>characteristics of those larger wholes are being enfolded into what is known</p><p>as ‘China’.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>The phenomenon of China’s rise offers IR an extraordinary opportunity</p><p>for critical reflection and self- appraisal. The contributions in this edited</p><p>volume see themselves as part of the ongoing ‘search for a vocabulary … by</p><p>14</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>means of which we can start to ask systemic questions about the possibility</p><p>of fundamental international transformations today’ (Ruggie, 1993: 140).</p><p>In pursuit of these aims, the contributors offer meaningful discussions of</p><p>how we might be better able to understand China, while simultaneously</p><p>exploring how the case of China could provide opportunities for IR</p><p>scholars to rethink the ways in which we have long theorized international</p><p>relations. The contention of the contributors to this volume is that the</p><p>transformative nature of China’s rise for world politics is also a point of</p><p>departure for theoretical innovation, reflection and transformation in the</p><p>discipline of IR itself.</p><p>The contributions to this edited volume do not intend to offer a definitive</p><p>resolution to all the questions associated with the theorization of China</p><p>in IR (Kavalski, 2021); however, by illuminating their complexity, the</p><p>following chapters suggest some outlines of new IR modes of critique,</p><p>thinking and knowledge capable of imagining global life other than as it</p><p>currently is (Gunitsky, 2013). At the same time, this volume should not be</p><p>misunderstood as an exercise in ordering or classification; instead, it aims</p><p>to draw attention to the multiplicity of Chinese engagements in and with</p><p>world affairs, as well as their footprint on IR theory building. 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Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp 34– 54.</p><p>PART I</p><p>Theorizing China’s Rise: Beyond</p><p>Eurocentric Knowledge Production</p><p>23</p><p>1</p><p>Putting China in the</p><p>World: From Universal Theory</p><p>to Contextual Theorizing</p><p>John Agnew</p><p>Introduction</p><p>In much of what goes for international relations (IR) theory, the re-</p><p>emergence of China as a major power is interpreted largely in terms of</p><p>familiar categories – from containment and hegemonic succession on the</p><p>‘realist’ side to norm acceptance and integration on the ‘liberal’ side (for</p><p>example Pan, 2012). The particular attributes of Chinese modernity and</p><p>their contradictions spark little or no interest. We are seemingly trapped</p><p>between the universals of theory, on the one hand, and the particulars of</p><p>China, on the other. Never the twain shall meet. Yet, an argument can be</p><p>made that the Chinese ‘case’ raises important questions about the universality</p><p>of international relations theory as presently understood (Agnew, 2017).</p><p>As the Introduction makes clear, and the chapters in this book provide all</p><p>sorts of evidence, perhaps the ‘rise’ of China with the attendant difficulties</p><p>of bringing it ‘to theory’ offers an opportunity both to question the very</p><p>universality claimed by current theory and to reformulate theorizing in light</p><p>of the Chinese experience.</p><p>Today, China occupies a central place in what can be called ‘a prophetic</p><p>culture’ – the focus of the field of IR theory on predicting future events</p><p>rather than explaining current practice (Woodside, 1998: 13). This requires</p><p>applying a universal calculus to cases such as China in which empirical</p><p>anomalies are viewed as minor particularities. In this vision, China is rising</p><p>as either or both a miracle and a threat. As William Callahan (2010: 11)</p><p>says: ‘China’s experience lends itself to hyperbole – both positive and</p><p>negative. The People’s Republic of China has the world’s largest population,</p><p>24</p><p>CHINA’S RISE AND RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY</p><p>largest portfolio of foreign exchange reserves, largest army, largest middle</p><p>class, and the largest diaspora.’ The list of ‘largests’ goes on. Much of this</p><p>is usually put down to the recent success of the implementation of the</p><p>East Asian developmental state model as adapted and expanded from the</p><p>practices of other states in the immediate region. Of course, it is based at</p><p>least in part on export- oriented manufacturing and integration into the</p><p>global financial system. So, any Chinese foreign policy decisions must be</p><p>placed in this context. At the same time, because of US decline or retreat</p><p>on economic and military fronts and the difficulties for a still relatively poor</p><p>country in responding to this, according to a host of commentators, again in</p><p>Callahan’s (2010: 11) words, China is ‘either preparing to take over the world</p><p>or is about to collapse’ under the weight of its own political and economic</p><p>contradictions. Yet, there is no possibility of any real agency resulting from</p><p>political choices made by jockeying interests and competing identities within</p><p>China itself with the inevitable involvement of external actors of various</p><p>sorts (for example Leonard, 2008).</p><p>In this chapter I attempt three tasks with the overall purpose</p>