The rise or the decline of a country, the development of the international community will be deeply involved in, especially to the greet powers, his deportments which everybody points an accusing finger at are enough to all the changes in international relations. Chinese rapidly economic growth and rising military power, causing global concerns about the rise of China having led to ¡¨China¡¦s rise¡¨, the issues have become multi-focus on academic field and international relations / politics discussed by the multiplicity. Applied the historical method to the thesis and in addition to the comparative method on the collection of documents so as to analyze it .The following conclusion based on the experience of the Chinese history whether the Han people or the peoples of non-Han established the dynasty, it is impossible to rise the country strength peacefully. Neither did the consolidating the great country position at peace. Not to mention, it is kind of the defeated country peacefully. Under the dual influences of the Economic Globalization and the reform opening-up economic policy, it let China hide his light under a bushel to rapidly economic growth, though the country was called Celestial Kingdom, and return the Great Power status again. The rapid economic rise of China threats to all the other countries in the world because it had carried out non-democratic institutions, encroached the human rights, and threatened to security in the Taiwan Strait to unable to trust the democratic countries which were worried. For it adhered to the leadership of the Communist party of China and sustained development of China¡¦s military, after all, the war might be due to its non-compliance with the international order. In fact, the ¡§Peaceful rise ¡¨put forward the following functions: First, the ¡§ rise ¡¨of it is accountable the its people to raise so called, ¡¨our-group consciousness ¡¨as a slogan, a kind of propaganda. Secondly, it is subject to the international environmental situations and the product of its domestic political struggle power, attempts to recapture the hegemony in order to establish ¡§China-centrism ¡¨by mutual confrontation with ¡§Western centrism ¡¨to fight it out. Third, its peace responses to the ¡§China Threat ¡¨by eliminating the phobia and worrier and reflect the fear of China to the West almost being simultaneous with it in fact. In a word, China¡¦s¡§ Peaceful rise ¡¨is attempt to hold their own ¡§point of view of sovereignty ¡¨to improve its state image.

This dissertation analyzed the internal incoherence of China’s grand strategy. To do so, it used the cultural driver of honor to explain the contradictory behavior of China, which ranges from peaceful, responsible international actor to assertive, revisionist rising power with hegemonic ambitions. The central research question asked why China often diverges from Peaceful Development, thus leading to major contradictions as well as possible misperceptions on the part of other nations. Honor was the standard of reference that was utilized and examined in order to establish congruence and coherence between deed and praxis. Accordingly, the first hypothesis of this study posited that if policy diverges from or is incongruent with China’s standard of national honor, then the grand strategy is internally incoherent. Second, two further hypotheses posited that China will tend to use peaceful means if its goal is to enhance external legitimacy, whereas it will tend to use assertive means if its goal is to enhance internal legitimacy. This dissertation began by broadly tracing the cultural driver of honor and the link between honor and legitimacy in Chinese history. The second part of the dissertation looked at the six most salient events within a six-year timeframe (2009-2015) by way of the focused, comparative single-case-study method. For each grand strategy policy input (military strategy, economic policy, and diplomatic policy), the two most salient events were carefully chosen. A fourth grand strategy input, legitimacy (both internal and external), was evaluated for each of these events as well. Methodologically speaking, this study used process tracing in these within-case studies of the single case of China’s grand strategy. Results showed that China’s grand strategy manifestations are by and large legitimacy-driven and that, therefore, peaceful or assertive actions may be differentiated in terms of relation to external or internal legitimacy. In sum, this dissertation advanced an innovative means of inquiry into the grand strategy of a non-Western country, contributed valuable information for the policy community, and offered results that enable a re-evaluation of the debate on the peaceful or violent rise of China.

針對外界流傳已久的中國威脅論，中國於2003年底開始推出「和平崛起」論述，主張中國以和平的方式崛起，並且旨在維護和平、以和平為目的。除了基於國際環境給予的動力與壓力之外，中國決策者對中國崛起的自信，以及期望建立一套新的國家發展論述促使和平崛起戰略的出台。中國建立了以和平崛起為目標的國家發展戰略，其中對外建構了一套和平崛起外交戰略，具體落實在大國外交、睦鄰外交、與發展中國家關係及多邊外交上。本研究自中國崛起的背景著手，從國際環境、國家實力與決策者認知理解中國提出和平崛起的原因、目的與特色，並觀察中國相應而生的具體外交作為。最後，本研究指出和平崛起外交戰略面臨到中美權力競逐與矛盾問題、中日安全困境與衝突利益問題、領海與資源爭議以及台灣問題的嚴格考驗。 / This dissertation focuses on the “peaceful rise” argument brought by China in the end of 2003. By contending that China will rise by peace, for peace, and peacefully, the so-called “peaceful rise” argument tried to counter “China threat” argument, which distributed for a long time. The making of China’s “peaceful rise” national strategy is motivated and forced by the international environment. On top of that, the confidence of Chinese decision-makers for a rising China provides power to the formation of the new national strategy as well as the expectation for a new national development discourse. Following the national development strategy which aims at a peacefully rising China, the “peaceful rise” diplomatic strategy was built by a series of concrete foreign policies, including “Big-power diplomacy,” “Good-neighboring diplomacy,” “Relations with developing countries,” and “Multi-lateral diplomacy”. This dissertation starts from the background of a rising China, comprehends the reason, goal and character of China’s “peaceful rise” by international environment, national power, and decision-maker’s cognitive approaches. Moreover, concrete foreign policies accompanying its national strategy are analyzed. Finally, this research finds that the peaceful rise diplomatic strategy needs to deal with certain challenges such as Sino-U.S. power struggle with conflicting issues, Sino-Japan security dilemma with conflicting issues, peripheral territorial sea and land disputes, and last but not least, the Taiwan problem.

This diploma thesis deals with the rise of China in the context of its behavior in the South China Sea over the past decade. The significant economic growth of the People's Republic of China over the last few decades is expected to affect not only the regional balance of powers, but also its position within the international system. There is a wide-ranging debate in academia about how China will grow and how it will affect the international community. As a reaction, in order to explain its growth, China has introduced the concept of "peaceful development", according to which its growth should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat to the international community. An offensive realism approach was chosen for this work and the ideas of its main advocate John Mearsheimer will be applied to the specific behavior of China in the region. The role of the United States, which influences China's behavior, will also be discussed. The diploma thesis will further deal with the increased Chinese assertiveness in the area of South China Sea and the means it uses in it to enforce its claims. The basic aim of this work is to underscore the contrast between the declared official policy of China and its actual behavior.