This thesis is concerned with nationalism in Chinese foreign policy. Adopting methods of comparative studies and formalised language analysis, through the case study of China's response to US engagement, this thesis explores the nationalist momentum in Chinese foreign policy during 1989-2000 and how the CCP loosely controls Chinese IR scholars' nationalist writings. The thesis argues that China is not a revisionist state despite the rise of the new nationalism. Chinese foreign policy since 1989 is best understood as largely being the product of an effectively yet loosely controlled, plural and reactive nationalism and that the CCP's domestic considerations keep Chinese foreign policy inward-looking. This thesis also argues that Chinese elites regard the US engagement policy as patronising and paternalistic and thus it fails to achieve its core objectives that centre on no unilateral use of offensive military force, peaceful resolution of territorial disputes and respect for international rules. It has been found that focal points of nationalism in Chinese foreign policy are legitimacy of the CCP's one-party rule, territorial control and modernization and that the new Chinese nationalism is a weak force. It has also been found that the US engagement policy toward China has generated nationalism in China and the CCP's response is mainly defensive arguments rather than hostile acts. I support my argument with a study of the CCP's official terms and Chinese IR scholars' writings. I examine how Chinese IR scholars try to follow the CCP's party line in foreign policy and how various groups of Chinese IR scholars interpret the party line in different ways. Focusing on the case of China's response to US engagement, I analyse Chinese elites' nationalistic views on the US approach to China in respect of security, political, cultural and economic issues. The implication of my research is that the growing concern about China threat has been in regional perceptions of Chinese goals rather than the CCP's diplomacy per se.

Scientists were important players in China's Cold War foreign relations. This dissertation examines the international activities of a cohOlt of elite and internationally educated scientists who were involved in international organisations such as the World Federation of Scientific Workers (WFSW) and events such as the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Focusing on the first three decades of the Cold War, this study encompasses a series of critical phases in China's development, in its relations with the outside world, and for its scientific community. Recently declassified archival material covering this period provides an opportunity for a far greater depth of analysis and nuance in understanding than would have been possible less than a decade ago. For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), these elite scientists were singularly effective intercultural intennediaries who, embedded in overlapping transnational epistemic and activist networks, won sympathy and support for the People's Republic of China (PRC) among foreign intellectuals. Such party-approved propaganda activities also afforded these scientists valuable opportunities to maintain contact with overseas scientific communities from which they were otherwise largely cut off. These PRC-based scientists and the domestic scientific organisations with which they were affiliated all had roles to play within the Chinese foreign affairs system. This dissertation shows that scientists' individual personal and professional networks, their activities in the WFSW, at the Pugwash conferences, and at events like the Peking Science Symposium conferences, all carried a mixture of opportunity and risk for a developing state like the early PRC.

This thesis explores the challenge that the rise of an illiberal state - China - presents to the current liberal international order. The existing literature on rising powers would lead to expectations that China will either challenge or seek to maintain the international regimes, practices and institutions that comprise the current international order. In particular it would be expected that as an illiberal power China would be expected to challenge the practices or regimes that espouse liberal concepts and promote greater liberalisation of both politics and economics. Taking these possibilities seriously, this thesis argues that it is possible for China to challenge ,some elements of international order whilst maintaining others: challenge does not necessitate or imply destructive revolution or conflict, and maintenance does not imply acquiescence or an absence of change. In presenting this possibility it looks at the ways the current international order is liberal and how that liberalism is expressed in the interpretations of sovereignty applied through debates and practices of the United Nations Security Council, and the methods and practices that pursue international development. It explores these two central elements that form the bedrock of the liberal international order by setting out possible tools to create normative change; through the interpretation or re-interpretation of norms and practices. The theoretical and empirical chapters highlight the possible variation in the expressions of agency that are available to great powers, suggesting that there are several tools available to agents to challenge international order, there are also several ways for rising powers' agency to be seen or obscured in changes taking place.

The "tribute system" has been the central organizing concept for our thinking about historical East Asian politics since the 1940s. Despite its dominance in the literature, however, the concept remains ill-defined and underspecified. The extant frameworks constructed around the concept also have not been evaluated conceptually and empirically in a systematic way. Most importantly, the tribute system, as an important institution for interstate relations in East Asian history, remains undertheorized in the existing literature. This thesis identifies three interrelated ways in which the "tribute system" concept has been used in the literature and argues that they all encounter problems in interpreting or explaining historical East Asian politics. The thesis deconstructs this concept by developing a theory of Chinese primacy in historical East Asia and by evaluating it against evidence from early Ming China's (1368-1424) relations with Korea, Japan, and the Mongols. The theory and evidence show that East Asian politics under the condition of Chinese primacy or unipolarity are best described as the dynamics between China's political/military domination and other states' accommodation and resistance. A variety of motives and strategies that China and its neighbours can employ toward each other are identified. The multiplicity of the relations between China and its neighbours suggests the need to deconstruct the analytical category of the "tribute system" and develop new conceptualizations about historical East Asian politics. The thesis calls for new thinking about historical East Asian politics, contributes to theorizing in this field by developing a synthetic theory of Chinese primacy that draws on both realist and constructivist theories of International Relations, and evaluates some persistent myths about Chinese foreign policy and East Asian politics in history.

There is now a growing body of research and publications on China's presence in Africa, as China's economic and political presence in Africa and its impact on Africa have grown rapidly in the last few years. Chinese engagement in Africa has been labelled a 'soft power' approach that provokes debate and criticism both in the West and in Africa. The term 'soft power' (Nye 1990, 2004 and 2008) in the field of International Relations (IR) describes the ability of a state or other political body to indirectly influence the behaviour or interests of other political bodies through intangible power resources such as values, culture and policies. Although the wielding of soft power is largely realized through discourse, the connection between soft power and discourse has not been made explicit or discussed in detail in Nye's work. Also, there is no adequate study on 'soft power' in discourse analysis, especially in the context of contemporary Chinese foreign policy. Discursive legitimation and representation are at the centre of wi~lding soft power in international diplomatic context. This thesis aims to examine the construction of China's soft power through a qualitative discourse analysis of legitimation and representation in China's foreign policy, in particular, China's African policy. The analytical methods highlight the interconnections between discursive legitimation, representation and national identity. This research, interdisciplinary in nature, is designed to apply discourse analysis to International Relations and thus to strengthen the linkage between Critical Discourse Analysis and politics.

More than 30 countries in the world sponsor a Language and Culture Promotion Organisation (LCPO), disseminating their own languages, cultures and other knowledge to people of different nationalities. The Confucius Institute (CI), as one such organisation, was set up by the Chinese government in 2004. This thesis uses the example of the CIs in Africa to examine the role of the CI in a two-dimensional power analytical framework. This framework was built on the key elements of both traditional understanding of power in international relations and Foucault’s conception of power. In the first dimensional analysis, the CI is seen as a concrete entity. The material and strategic support for the construction and operation of this organistion is elaborated. The second dimensional analysis adopts a Foucauldian perspective where the CI is deconstructed. It demonstrates the CI’s power technology, including its power structure, power techniques and power instruments. By examining the power effects produced by the CI’s power technology, the thesis argues that the CI plays a positive role in promoting China’s national interest in Africa and China-Africa relations.

This thesis introduces an overlooked perspective on Chinese foreign policy, that of interest groups. I use environmental foreign relations as a vantage point to examine how domestic interest groups exert influence on China’s environmental foreign relations. The proposed theoretical framework, constructivist utilitarianism, provides a bridge between the constructivist school and rationalistic institutionalism in the IR debate to explain the discursive turn of the Chinese government in global environmental governance. The discursive turn refers to the changing attitudes towards environmental governance based on learning, shared experiences, and offering an alternative norm to replace liberal environmentalism. The interest groups under scrutiny are line ministries, state-owned enterprises, environmental non-governmental organisations, local governors, and intellectuals. They each represent a distinct interest, and demonstrate different pathways for influencing foreign relations. The focus on domestic players supplements the traditional focus on international systemic factors to explain the behaviour of China on the global stage and in bilateral relations. The empirical chapters are organised according to three dimensions: international environmental treaty implementation, sharing the Chinese experience, and offering an alternative environmental norm. Each chapter focuses on one factor, in the following order: environmental diplomacy, the Chinese experience, and ecological civilisation. These three dimensions reflect the trend of the discursive turn, which is closely linked to China’s desire to establish a good national image. My findings show that interest groups in China utilise the strategic concepts of environmental diplomacy and the Chinese experience to maximise their interests. The emergence of the discourse of ecological civilisation creates space for different groups to jump onto the bandwagon by interpreting the concept in favour of their interests. In this process, identity politics becomes a mechanism by which to aggregate and rank domestic preferences in such a way that economic interests outweigh environmental ones at the state level. This thesis calls for more future research to examine other foreign relations issues through the lens of interest groups, to better comprehend the complex dynamics of China’s role in the world.

There has been much interest and attention on the representation of China as a responsible great power. Indeed, Chinese leaders, policymakers and scholars have not been hesitant to declare China as one. Yet, relatively little is known about when, how and why this proclaimed self-identity emerged in Beijing. This thesis represents an initial attempt to unpack these questions. Mobilising the idea of international identity, I map the evolution of China’s declared identity as a responsible power, and examine its attributes and drivers. My central contention is that since the early 1990s, China has been increasingly identifying—not only portraying—itself as a responsible great power. As this thesis shows, there is a vibrant epistemic terrain relating to the idea of global responsibility within China. For some time now, Chinese elites have been debating intensely the kind of responsible power that China should be. That these domestic identity debates take place frequently, away from the attention of most of the world, suggests the Chinese regard the idea of big power responsibility far more seriously than had it been purely a convenient propagandist tool. Examining how these elites think about the responsible power role, hence, may be crucial to a better understanding of the implications and trajectory of China’s rise. Nevertheless, the development of this identity has not been solely a product of Chinese domestic narratives and perceptions. The role of the United States as a moral adjudicator and pressure source is also significant.

‘Security’ has been undergoing a process of re-conceptualisation since the Cold War. Realism’s dominance meant that security concerned the survival of the nation-state in the face of military aggression. This clear-cut ‘traditional security’ has been contested since the 1970s, when ‘non-traditional security’ (NTS) covering non-military threats began to be discussed. Security Studies now encompasses varying approaches and interpretations. The concept of security is evolving substantially, but the debate is mostly limited to Western voices. Yet NTS has sparked a lively discourse in the PRC. The thesis establishes Chinese International Relations (IR) scholars’ understanding of NTS, based on the close textual analysis of academic publications and on interviews conducted with authors and other IR-specialists in China. It enquires into what these scholars mean when discussing NTS, and whether their conceptions differ from the mainstream, mainly Western, IR discourse. It then investigates the ten issues generally deemed NTS in the Chinese debate: culture and information security; terrorism and transnational crime; economic security and migration; energy and environmental security; and health and food security, analysing their conceptualisations, assigned importance, causes for variance within the debate, emerging political meanings and implications, and possible normative implications. The study shows that the scholarly NTS debate in China is diverse, ranging from a more statist expansion of national security to non-military threats to a theoretically deeper discourse which embraces individual security. Although the debate encompasses political purposes of vindicating state securitisation and advocating state management, some scholars’ arguments have normative implications of moving towards a people-centric view of security encouraging a change in global politics. The debate in China is still in flux, without universally accepted definitions, but a normative turn is evident which means that Chinese IR theory overall moves beyond descriptive theory. The study contributes to the wider research by adding to our understanding of how China ‘sees’ the world, and to the debate on NTS by critically examining the Chinese thought vis-à-vis the mainstream literature.

Pariah status in international society denotes an international social hierarchy and differentiation of states caused by power differentials between state groups along the material and normative spectrums. From the late Qing era to the present day, China’s engagement with international society has largely been marked by a sharp fall from the ‘Middle Kingdom’ to a pariah, followed by a recent rise to great power status. This thesis traces and analyses China’s experience as a pariah in international society since 1839, and explains China’s responses to the normative boundaries and behavioural standards set by members of international society. To this end, this thesis addresses two themes. Theme One (Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4) provides an account of the sociological history of pariah state, on which basis it conducts an empirical study on China’s pariah past. Theme Two (Chapter 5) brings in a sociological account of status to understand the fall and rise of states (particularly that of China), and to explain state responses to the normative boundaries alongside their status change in international society. Moreover, it challenges the material-power based power transition theory on China’s rise and destiny, and argues for an alternative status-led account. In general, this thesis resonates greatly with English School theorists and social constructivists in terms of the understanding of and approach towards international relations. In a broad sense, it adopts a combined sociological and historical approach towards the study of the international, specifically that of pariah and status. The main contentions of this thesis are: first, pariah is a social, relational and historically contingent term. Pariah states are socially made through a process of rule making, rule-application, and behaviour-judging, with the rule-makers being those who are positioned at the higher ends of both material and normative power spectrums. The criteria for pariah are not fixed, but subject to change as they are conditioned by the changing international normative/material structures and dynamics among actors. Second, state status has both material and social implications in international society. It derives from the internal/domestic attributes of the state as well as the external/international. The attainment of status hinges upon material power capacity, state identity, behavioural legitimacy, and international perception thereof. Third, empirically, the fall and rise of China in international society is not merely a process of China’s material power decline and elevation relative to others, but was also accompanied by its social mobility downward and upward. China’s responses to the international normative boundaries are not purely determined by material power incentives. Instead, it is the complex interplay between the material and the social that accounts for China’s constant struggle between compliance with the standardised behavioural codes prescribed in the standard of civilisation, and attempts to contest them by inserting its own civilisational values.