Abstract
China is becoming a more influential actor in the world, being a key factor in global climate governance and international development. While the Chinese government is still avoiding the term “international leadership” in its official discourse, China is in practice exercising international leadership and is bound to assume more leadership in the world in coming years. This article explains the reasons behind Chinese reluctance to embrace a leadership discourse, and attempts to develop the concept of facilitative leadership, based on existing Chinese leadership practices, to solve the conceptual problem and to ensure a sustainable and constructive leadership role in world affairs. The key features of a facilitative leadership are collective rather than hegemonic leadership, attractive rather than coercive leadership, win–win rather than solipsistic leadership, and empowering rather than patronal leadership.
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Notes
Xi Jinping’s opening speech at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou 2016. Available online at http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2016-09/04/c_129268987.htm, accessed 1 June 2017.
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A scholar from Rand Corporation points out that the liberal international order proposed by the US is not that liberal. From the perspective of other countries, the US uses norms selectively. The US only uses these norms when the norms are in favour of the US and set according to the US interest. See Mazarr (2017).
Some other scholars have raised similar conceptions: patronal leadership which refers to leading country to make sure one or several followers can have net interest. See Knorr (1973).
At the end of 2011, New Yorker magazine used the comment by an anonymous consultant for president Obama saying “leading from behind” to describe his Libya strategy, which is to encourage European allies to intervene. From our perspective, this is a kind of subcontracting or outsourcing leadership. See Schake (2017).
“United We Stand, Divided We Fall,” European Council: letter by President Donald Tusk to the 27 EU heads of state or government on the future of the EU before the Malta summit, January 31, 2017. Available online at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2017/01/31-tusk-letter-future-europe/, accessed 1 June 2017.
Chen Zhimin has proposed the idea of “facilitative power” in a previous article. See Chen (2012).
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Acknowledgements
This article is an updated and revised English version of an article in Chinese published by the authors: Zhimin Chen & Guorong Zhou, “Guoji lingdao yu zhongguo xiejinxing lingdao jiaose de goujian [International Leadership and the Construction of a Facilitative Leadership Role for China], World Economy and Politics, No. 3, 2017, pp.15–34. Authors would like to thank the financial support from Chinese Ministry of Education Designated Research Program 2015 (Project Number 15JZD035).
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Chen, Z., Zhou, G. & Wang, S. Facilitative Leadership and China’s New Role in the World. Chin. Polit. Sci. Rev. 3, 10–27 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-017-0077-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-017-0077-8