Abstract
Chinese writings on international relations increasingly invoke history. In the past Chinese and foreigners alike have seen China’s foreign policies through the lens of history, but recent Chinese stress on the “harmonious world” resulting from Confucianism has shifted the discussion. It serves as a guide to resurgent claims for leadership, a source of legitimation for why China deserves leadership, and a warning of how its leadership may be abused to the detriment of countries agreeing to regionalism or multilateralism. Claims to superiority raise tensions in Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere where hopes had existed for a shared view of history. They arouse controversy among advocates of socialist ideology who fear that Confucianism will eclipse communism. The increasingly hereditary elite of Party leaders continues to bridge the gap between these two types of memory, but they face an ideological challenge at home and a credibility challenge abroad.
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Notes
David C. Kang, China Rising, 80.
Johnston, Cultural Realism, 259–66.
Rozman, Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 292.
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Rozman, G. Invocations of Chinese Traditions in International Relations. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 17, 111–124 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-012-9188-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-012-9188-0