Towards a Chinese School of International Relations Theory : a historiographical and critical assessment

Abstract

This study is concerned with an academic phenomenon in contemporary Chinese International Relations (IR): scholars' collective attempts to build up a unique Chinese School of IR theory. This Chinese School movement has two distinct features, being academically ahistorical and future oriented. Because contemporary Chinese IR scholars deny the existence of Chinese IR before 1949, the Chinese School movement has no connection with previous attempts to understand modern international relations. Because there is no Chinese IR theory even after 30 years of serious searching, the image of a Chinese School as a paradigm which is more reliable than the existing Western IR theories is primarily based on a strong belief in the future success of a reliable Chinese IR theory. This study understands the Chinese School movement by exploring the meaning of these two features. It first reconstructs the academic history of Chinese IR from the late 1920s to the late 1970s. By comparing the academic performance of Chinese IR before 1949 and in Mao Ze-dong's era, the consensus that there was no Chinese IR before 1949 is falsified. Then it focuses on contemporary discourse of the Chinese School to find out how consensus has been gradually achieved concerning, respectively, the necessity of, the possibility of, and the way towards a Chinese IR theory. Finally it provides a general understanding of the Chinese School movement by bringing it back to the history of Chinese IR and specifies the political and academic features which heavily influence contemporary Chinese IR in general and the Chinese School movement in particular.

This study contributes to the Chinese School movement in three ways. First, it provides a completely new history of Chinese IR, which has been widely ignored in the past. It hence opens a new space for further exploration of any Chinese academic way to deal with international relations. Second, it criticizes the common sense which Chinese IR scholars have taken for granted and used as the fundamental reason to prove and to construct a Chinese IR theory. As a result, it helps Chinese as well as Western IR scholars to have a better understanding of this unique academic phenomenon and hence a better understanding of any knowledge products in Chinese IR, which is heavily influenced by the Chinese School movement. Third, it provides a better foundation for the Chinese School movement and hence makes a Chinese IR theory more possible. It not only re-establishes a historically tenable foundation for the collective efforts towards a Chinese IR theory, but it also requests an epistemologically tenable foundation which is self-aware of the possible China egocentrism.