A Hierarchical Vision of Order

Abstract

This book examines China’s designs for a hierarchical international order in Asia that would solidify its central place in the region. It traces the roots of China’s vision of order to its traditional political thought and argues that practices from its imperial past find clear echoes in its contemporary foreign policy. The book identifies five core tenets grounded in ancient philosophical traditions with relevance today, namely a sense of responsibility for the maintenance of international order, the association of order with hierarchy understood as the rationalization of natural inequalities between states, a claim to moral superiority to justify China’s dominant position, the maintenance of hierarchical order through the imposition of a code of ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ conduct on smaller states, and the mobilization of three tools of statecraft – mastery of language, the awesomeness derived from military might, and the ability to offer material benefits to followers – to enforce compliance with this code of conduct. This book examines how those tenets informed Chinese statecraft during the imperial era, the form in which they survived the country’s traumatic encounter with the expanding Western society of states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the ways they still shape the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China. It argues that Xi Jinping has enthusiastically embraced those long-standing traditions and sought to put them into practice with unprecedented vigour so as to obtain the deference of China’s neighbours and recover its ‘natural’ role of overseer of international order in Asia.