Debating the 'Chinese Theory of International Relations': Toward a New Stage in China's International Studies

Abstract

Abstract China's international relations (IR) discipline is largely a creation of the past thirty years. Despite its short history, there have been some exciting developments-major achievements recognized by scholars as signifying progress, as well as sustained controversies and debates-over the past three decades. This chapter aims to review the recent history of Chinese IR and to assess one of its most important developments: the project of the "Chinese theory of IR" since the late 1980s and all the controversies and debates it has provoked. Recent scholarly attention to Chinese IR seems to be primarily focused on the discourse of the "Chinese School," and the relationship between the "Chinese School" and the project of the "Chinese theory of IR" may thus appear baffling. I argue, however, that the "Chinese School" project, despite its recent prominence, is better seen as a subproject, alongside other subprojects, such as the longstanding proposal for building an "IR theory with Chinese characteristics," within the overall project of the "Chinese theory of IR." This larger "Chinese theory" project signifies a key trend in the Chinese IR field in the past two decades and should be explainable by the same factors explaining the development of the field as a whole. The chapter proceeds as follows. The first section develops an explan atory model for the development of Chinese IR. The second section then applies the model to explain the evolution of the field, while also preparing essential background for the main discussion of the "Chinese theory of IR" project. The discussion distinguishes the "Chinese characteristics" subproject from the "Chinese School" subproject and describes their main features and the varied criticisms they have provoked. The fourth section offers my own assessment of the "Chinese theory" project, identifying its problems and suggesting some preliminary thoughts for its theoretical development. In the conclusion I look for threads leading to the possible future evolution of Chinese IR by revisiting the explanatory model developed in the first section.