중국은 어떠한 동아시아 질서를 추구하는가?

Abstract

China became a second largest economy in the world in 2010. Therefore, it is very likely that China will be a great power which can preside over the international order with the United States, for a economic power tends to produce a military and political power. In the meantime, the questions as to “What type of great power it will be?” have been raised. Common questions of these discussions are whether it will adopt a peaceful foreign policy as a democratic country or a hegemonic and confrontational foreign policy as an authoritarian country. This thesis studied China’s rhetoric and actual diplomatic measures before and after 2010. The study demonstrated that since 2010 its rhetoric and actual diplomatic measures seem to have a tendency of an ‘aggressive or coercive hegemony’. Peaceful rhetoric and actual diplomatic measures which China had showed before 2010 appeared to be temporary and hypocritical ones. Chinese President Xi Jinping began to talk about ‘China’s dream’. ‘China’s dream’ is a ‘great resurrection of Chinese people’. Chinese leaders since Deng Xiaoping have kept a low- profile foreign policy stance by obeying ‘tao guang yang hui’(hide one’s capabilities and bide one’s time), which is Deng’s legacy. However, the Chinese governments began to see itself as a great power and conduct an assertive foreign policy since 2008 when the global financial crisis took place. It launched the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ and declared the ‘Asian New Security Declaration’ which urged Asian nations to keep Asian security for themselves and began to regard the South China Sea as a China’s core interest. This Chinese aggressive behavior provoked strong repercussions from the United States. Therefore, the U.S. launched a trade war by defining China as a ‘strategic competitor’, which brought about the breakdown of the U.S.-China relations. In summary, China appears to attempt to recover centrality in the world by resurrecting ‘the great tradition of the Chinese nation’ which it once had had. However, it is not still clear what exactly it will look like. Whether China will be a peaceful country or not depends on China’s domestic situation and economic growth, perceptions of China’s leadership, and reactions of the neighboring countries.