Chinese Foreign Relations: Reflections On Knowledge Production

With China's global ascendancy, Chinese foreign policy has become a popular area of study for scholars around the world. Rather than simply contributing to this subject, this book sets out to reflect on the field itself, using as samples some of the author's previous work, both published and unpublished, covering different areas of Chinese foreign policy and adopting different approaches. In doing so, it examines how knowledge about Chinese foreign policy has developed, focusing on areas such as traditions, values, perspectives and regionalism.The field of Chinese foreign policy has evolved along with international relations and foreign policy analysis. Studies on specific topics have generally been of high quality thanks to the competitive and extensive nature of academic research and exchange, despite a perceived failure to predict Beijing's current assertive foreign policy orientation. Looking forward, this book reflects on how certain current tendencies — excessive focus on national security, narrowing of academic exchange and access between China and the West, and a shift to rivalry-driven analysis — threaten to lower the quality of future Chinese foreign policy studies in Western countries.