Can China become a future normative, responsible power?

Abstract

This paper discusses Western and Chinese views on China’s growth to highlight the differences in perspectives regarding the outlook of China’s future. An overview of the features of a normative power and an examination of the challenges China faces when she interacts with its neighbors will elicit traces of its potential normative style in the region. We will then conclude that China is in a dilemma in exhibiting its normative power, and it seeks to reconcile the situation through managing sovereignty issues with its neighbors in a consistent way and in proposing initiatives such as the AIIB and the 21st Century Maritime Silkroad to help portray itself as a responsible and accepted normative strength. Show more