The aim of this thesis is to examine the dynamics of China's engagement with global climate change. After critically reviewing mainstream neo-realist and neo-liberal institutionalist approaches to International Relations and climate change, the thesis develops a revised governmentality framework based on a critical engagement with critical IPE and Foucauldian approaches. This provides the basis for an analytical framework focusing on four distinct ‘rationalities of government' in China's climate change politics and governance, which are sovereignty, development, market and the environment. The genealogical examination of these four governmental rationalities has demonstrated the dynamics among them and the relations of state/society/party in China. By applying this analytical framework, the thesis critically examines two distinctive fields of China's climate change politics: international politics and the Clean Development Mechanism in China. The thesis argues that although neo-liberal governmentality appears dominant in global climate politics, the case study of China reveals different dynamics in which the rationalities of sovereignty and development have played the more influential roles. By contrast, the market rationality has been instrumentalised in China for the pursuit of economic growth and the environmental rationality has been marginalised. The thesis contends that the uneven relations among these rationalities have to be grasped through historical and contextual exploration. Different paths and mentalities of state formation and modernisation have had significant influences on China's politics and governance of climate change in both international and domestic levels. The findings from this research help to explain the changes and continuities in China's positions in international climate negotiations, in its regulation of the carbon market, and in the formation of climate knowledge and mentalities under the rule of the Communist Party.