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A Discourse Called China and the PRC’s Foreign Policy and Diplomacy

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Abstract

On the basis of the premise that China, besides being a powerful civilization and state, is also a powerful discourse, this essay will set forth, as a preliminary analytical step, a plausible definition of the ‘Chinese mind’ by describing certain essential characteristics that have been forged in China’s classical culture and thought. When placed in the more creative sphere of discourse construction, these essential characteristics become ideological compounds of the here theorized ‘discourse called China’, whose impact is weighed up as the focal analytical point in the discursive space of the PRC’s foreign policy and diplomacy.

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Notes

  1. For an overview of these outstanding scholars in modern China and their disciplinary fields see: [1–4].

  2. For instance, analyzing the positions on traditional Chinese thought of the intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement—which arose from the protests in Tian’anmen Square in 1919—Jean François Billeter [6] defines four groups: ‘iconoclasts’, ‘critics’, ‘comparativists’, and ‘purists’. According to him, the political implications of their positions would still be reflected in contemporary China’s ideological debate.

  3. The ‘multipurpose cooperation’ theoretical framework is set out further in Jesús Solé-Farràs, New Confucianism in Twenty-First Century China: The Construction of a Discourse (Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2014), 3–5, 220–230.

  4. Fang, Chinese View, p. 88.

  5. Ibid., p. ii.

  6. As is well known, in current Chinese politics, sound potentialities of the traditional concept of harmony have been explored, which may not be unrelated to the classic idea of the restoration of an idyllic past of peace and harmony associated with the existence of a stable political power. The concept of ‘harmony’ as an overlapping field in which the traditional Confucian values, adapted to the twenty-first century by New Confucianism, and the CCP’s socialist values representing ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’ is dealt with in [11].

  7. Chan, ‘Spirit of Oriental Philosophy’, p. 155.

  8. Álvarez, El Tao, p. 122. On the idea of ‘following two paths simultaneously’, see the fable ‘In the morning three’ in Zhuangzi, 2:6.

  9. Fang, Chinese View, p. 263.

  10. The ‘state level’ of analysis considers that the state’s external behavior grows out of a complex interaction of internal factors, so that foreign policy cannot be understood without specific knowledge of each state’s history, political system, culture, and leaders—constructivism is the term that most frequently summarizes this. Distinctively, the ‘system level’ of analysis presumes that foreign policy is a reaction to the state’s external environment, so that the international system would largely determine the behavior of states regardless of their internal characteristics—usually, this describes the theories of realism, liberalism and Marxism. See [18].

  11. In Analects 16:1 we read: ‘If remoter people are not submissive, all the influences of civil culture and virtue are to be cultivated to attract them to be so; and when they have been so attracted, they must be made contented and tranquil’ [22] .

  12. Fairbank, "China's Foreign Policy", p. 460.

  13. Its locus classicus is the Book of Rites, ‘Miscellaneous records II’.

  14. The construction of the PRC’s foreign policy official discourses started, however, in 1949 with Mao Zedong’s principles of ‘starting anew’, renouncing all the diplomatic relations that the Guomindang Government had established, and of ‘leaning to one side’, that is, to socialism.

  15. Cited in [25].

  16. Insert footnote:Mont Tai is a powerful symbol, which played an important role in the development of Buddhism and Taoism.

  17. [29]. The name of the Qiushi Journal, which publicizes the official philosophy of the CCP, derives from the four-character phrase ‘shi shi qiu shi 實事求是’ (‘seeking truth from facts’).

  18. Cited in [30].

  19. Kissinger, Diplomacy, p. 831.

  20. By the so-called 1992 Consensus, governments of the PRC and the ROC agreed that China’s sovereignty was indivisible, which lent legitimacy to the One-China policy that makes simultaneous diplomatic relations with both countries incompatible.

  21. Wang Yi, Press conference at the 3rd Session of the 12th National People's Congress, 8 March 2015, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1243662.shtml.

  22. The idea of ‘harmony without uniformity’ (和而不同), which is here used to underpin the key contemporary Chinese views of respect for sovereignty and non-interference in a ‘new international order’, is taken from Analects 13:23. It is another example of the creative use of the Chinese philosophical heritage in the sphere of discourse construction, since the classical text referred to the exemplary behavior of the junzi as opposed to that of xiaoren: ‘The gentleman is harmonious but not conformist, the little man is conformist but not harmonious’—translated by [44].

  23. The universal principle of ‘reciprocity’ is formulated in Analects 15:23 in the Chinese culture, in which this principle is shared by Confucianism, Taoism and Mohism.

  24. The locus classicus of this sentence is ‘The Great Treatise I’, in the Book of Changes. Indeed, Confucius is not identified there as the author of these words—‘to be able to continue long shows the virtue of the wise and able man; to be able to become great is the heritage he will acquire’, in J. Legge’s translation—which would only show the purpose of giving the highest moral authority to the quotation.

  25. Wang, Press conference.

  26. The complete Confucius’s account goes like this: ‘At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right’ (Analects, 2:4).

  27. Wang Yi, 1st Meeting of the China-CELAC Forum, Beijing, 13 January 2015, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/wjbz_663308/2461_663310/t1229672.shtml.

  28. Yang, Innovations.

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  1. Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

    Jesús Solé-Farràs

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Solé-Farràs, J. A Discourse Called China and the PRC’s Foreign Policy and Diplomacy. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 21, 281–300 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-016-9398-y

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