중국공산당 100년의 세계인식과 외교 노선 변천사 試論

Abstract

The process of change in the world perception of Mao Zedong and the CCP before the reform era was ultimately a process of struggling to establish an independent worldview. From the beginning of its foundation, the CCP interpreted the international situation from the viewpoint of ‘world revolution’ rather than from the Chinese reality, accepting the world view of the Comintern as it is. As a consequence, the CCP subordinated the strategy of the Chinese revolution to the interests of the Soviet Union and the Comintern’s world revolution. Although it is true that Mao stressed the importance of ‘independence and self-reliance’, the CCP’s official world view and interpretation of international circumstances, even after Mao’s rise to power in the party, was basically a copy of Comintern’s viewpoint, at least until the end of the Sino-Japanese war.BR Mao Zedong’s ‘intermediate-zone’ theory, which was raised in 1946, was a very important turning point in the centenary of the CCP’s world perception in that it was the starting point for establishing an independent worldview based on the ‘attitude toward China’. During Mao’s era, this ‘intermediate-zone’ theory showed various variations and finally resulted in the ‘three-worlds theory’ of the 1970s. Also, even when there was a paradigm shift in the CCP’s world strategy under the discourse of ‘peace and development’ in Deng Xiaoping’s era, assessing other countries’ attitude towards China has always been at the core of CCP’s world perception since 1946. During Mao’s period, when the antagonistic ideological atmosphere prevailed in the Cold War regime, it was expressed in the ideological concept and term of ‘anti-imperialism’. But after Deng Xiaoping, when ideological confrontation weakened, ‘anti-hegemonism’ became the new keyword, which was a more specific and exact expression in explaining the worldview of Mao’s and Deng’s era.BR The world perceptions of the CCP in the Mao’s and Deng’s era were basically ‘responsive’ in that they took the attitude of foreign powers toward China as the core factor of their perception. However, following the rise of China in the end of the 20th century, important changes have been taking place in this ‘responsive’ world view. The CCP is gradually admitting its status as a world power and is actively demonstrating its will to reform the international regime according to ‘Chinese standards’. These changes appearing in the 21st century are very different from the CCP’s world perception that has been maintained throughout Mao’s and Deng’s era. Breaking away from the existing worldview which was focused on understanding the international situation mainly in response to external threats, China is now seeing itself as the center of world civilization and is revealing its grand ambition to reconstruct the world order based on Chinese model.BR ‘Modern Chinese nationalism’ and ‘Traditional Sino-centrism’ were the two pillars that constituted the CCP’s worldview in the past 100 years. Whereas the former became the main melody in the eras of Mao and Deng, as China accomplished its basic goals of nationalism at the end of the 20th century, it is very likely that the center of gravity gradually shifted to the latter.