a reposting from Sinification
Today's edition opens with an introduction by Rosemary Foot, Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, and a Research Associate at the Oxford China Centre. Professor Foot has a particular interest in China as a multilateral actor in world politics.
I extend my thanks to her for contributing to this newsletter and to Prof. Tang Shiping (唐世平) for reviewing today’s translation and permitting Sinification to publish this exchange.
— Thomas des Garets Geddes
This interview, involving two well-regarded scholars of International Relations and Area Studies, provides a candid and wide-ranging discussion of Dr Zhang Yunling’s intellectual preoccupation with determining how a China that has grown more powerful can live in peaceful coexistence with its neighbours and other major powers. Dr Zhang attributes his focus on establishing peaceful coexistence and the bases for international cooperation to the influence of Confucian thought (he was born in Confucius’s home town) and the ten years he spent studying European integration which led a region that had been deeply scarred by conflict to unite and live in peace and prosperity.
Zhang is particularly keen to explore how China should best conduct its Asia-Pacific regional relations in a world that no longer resembles the immediate post-World War II era. We live now, he argues, in a period in which power has dispersed, where states that are weaker or smaller than China strongly guard their strategic autonomy, and where any attempt by China to establish a hegemonic order would be resisted and likely fail. One response, beyond China’s acknowledgement that power has dispersed, is to recognise that China’s national security strategy should start from the premise that there is no existential threat to China – no country has the capacity to invade China as he puts it. And thus, on this basis, China’s range of strategic options becomes much broader.
The theme of coexistence and cooperation is also taken up when Dr Zhang discusses China-US relations. Zhang considers, as many other scholars have recently, the pressure that Asia-Pacific countries are experiencing to choose sides in response to the strategic competition between the United States and China. Zhang’s view is that such a choice – except in extreme circumstances – should not be forced upon any of China’s neighbours and that each should be allowed a “flexible space for coexistence.”
Even with regard to the United States itself, while Zhang acknowledges that strategic competition may be inevitable, there are also elements of potential reciprocity in the relationship. The two countries could build upon their “shared responsibilities” as major states. Again, he advocates searching for a space for manoeuvre in this relationship.
Looking to the wider world, Zhang notes the serious demands that are being made for reforming world order. He agrees that developing countries need to expand their levels of representation, and have their demands met for redistributing wealth and decision-making power. To these ends, he wants to see a China that is “building temples, renovating temples, but not demolishing temples.”
Many would support this remarkable statement of advocacy for the transformation of China into a country that is more at ease with its place in the world. However, the current serious tensions in China’s external relations are essentially neglected as Zhang casts back to an era when China’s diplomatic reassurance strategy once held sway
Rosemary Foot
Summary of
FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE TO A REGIONAL FOCUS (EXCERPT]S)
Zhang Yunling (张蕴岭) and Tang Shiping (唐世平)
Published by International Politics Scholars (国政学人) in two parts on 4 September and 5 September 2024
[ Lightly edited machine translation ]
China experiences both an inferiority and a superiority complex—feeling inferior in comparison to developed countries, yet also superior on account of its long history, rich culture and sheer size.
All major powers are prone to hegemonic and self-interested behaviour, including China.
However, China's rise is occurring in a much more constraining environment than that faced by the US after WWII. This has helped China keep such tendencies in check.
The pursuit of peaceful, harmonious and mutually beneficial relations with other countries remains the key to China’s success. This applies to all countries, including those closest to China’s Significant Other—the United States.
International relations theory has long been aligned with Western values and interests. Chinese scholars should explain the world using their own culture’s distinctive way of thinking.
China should stop basing its strategies on the assumption that it could still be invaded. Such a fundamental shift in approach would open up a whole new range of strategic options.
China seeks the emergence of a new world order more aligned with its economic interests and those of the developing world. It aims to improve, not to destroy, the current international system established by the West.
The BRI provided a way for a latecomer like China to (re)engage with the world. It was driven in part by a need to transfer some of its “production capacity” abroad and by an ambition to become as much a maritime power as it is a land-based one.
Tomorrow’s world order will be defined by the diffusion of power. Hegemony will gradually become a relic of the past and “traditional ideologies” will, with luck, wane.
The “Peak China” theory focuses on China’s current economic difficulties. In the long run, economic growth and a country’s influence may no longer be measured using today’s metrics. Much is set to change, including the weakening bond between citizens and the state. From this perspective, China has yet to reach its peak.
The Interviewee
Name: Zhāng Yùnlǐng (张蕴岭)
Date of birth: August 1945 (age: 79)
Position: Director of the Institute of International Studies, Shandong University
Other: Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)
Previously: Spent most of his career at CASS and directed several of its departments; Member of the 10th, 11th, and 12th National Committee of the CPPCC
Research focus: China’s international relations; Global and regional governance; International economics
Education: Studied English at Shandong University in the lead up to and height of the Cultural Revolution (1964-1969); MA University of CASS (1978-1981)
Experience abroad (visiting scholar): Harvard and Princeton University (1985-1986); European University Institute (1991-1992); MIT (1997); Chuo University in Japan (2000); NTU Singapore (2009)
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