Interpreting Chinese Foreign Policy

Interpreting China's increasingly diverse foreign relations and international conduct requires new, sophisticated tools of analysis. This book goes far beyond textbooks which examine Chinese foreign policy by way of diplomatic history: instead it provides a comprehensive, enduring, and useful framework for understanding Chinese policy decisions and behaviour patterns.

Quansheng Zhao applies the micro-macro linkage' model to Chinese foreign policy from 1949 to the present, illustrating how factors such as domestic constraints, the international environment, and individual actors combine to influence policy decisions. He shows how the key trends of modernization, nationalism, and regionalism have shaped the character and patterns of China's international behaviour. He then uses the model to interpret China's past and present policies towards Taiwan, the United States, the former Soviet Union, Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and South-East Asia. This book also offers teachers and students a comprehensive review of literature and analytical approaches, a solid overview of Chinese foreign policy, and helpful chronologies of Party and State leadership.

Quansheng Zhao's 'micro-macro linkage' approach opens new doors to fresh and valuable research, and is sure to remain one of the most important conceptual guidelines for a long time to come.