China’s Rising Power and Its Impact on Sino-Afghan Relations: An Analysis of China’s Foreign Policy towards Afghanistan (2001-2022)

The rise of China has aroused much concern and anxiety around the world. This has complicated China's foreign policy objective of securing a peaceful international environment for domestic reforms and development. Accordingly, reassuring the world of the benign nature of China's rise has become a central feature of China's foreign policy. This paper describes and analyses China's efforts in this regard. First, it outlines the central features of such efforts which constitute a policy of reassurance. Then it explores the major factors shaping the policy. Finally it tries to assess the result of the policy and speculate about its future development. It is hoped that this will help gain a better understanding of China's foreign policy.

The foreign policy activities of the PRC President Xi Jinping since he became China’s leader in 2012 show that China is gradually moving from regional to global goals in international affairs. In the author’s opinion, the country’s role and influence in the modern world has expanded beyond its participation in international relations as it was in 1980s and 1990s, defined by Deng Xiaoping’s principles “to observe calmly” and “never claim leadership”. Now Beijing seeks to increase and strengthen its influence on the global stage in the so-called period of strategic opportunities. The rise of China causes opposition from other regional powers (India and Japan) as well as from the U. S. Therefore, Chinese foreign policy decision-makers are facing a serious dilemma: on the one hand, the country has become a “responsible global power”, moving away from its previous status of a “responsible stakeholder” with limited liability. At the same time, in addition to the Belt and Road Initiative, the PRC is now implementing a global project of a “community of shared future for humankind”, which could have a great impact on the future world order. Most Russian and Western researchers agree that this concept has not received a specific description and remains obscure to the international scientific and expert community. Therefore, consideration of the genesis of this idea, peculiarities of its development, its conceptualization is relevant. Meanwhile, the idea of the “community of a shared future for humankind”, which was already in the diplomatic background of the former Chinese authorities, creates the conceptual basis of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy strategy. In this article, the authors consider this idea as well as the main features of its development, conceptualization and subsequent transformation into a global concept of China for the 21st century. It is attempted to examine theoretical foundations of the concept and some practical aspects of its implementation. As a result of the study, the authors come to a conclusion that the “community of a shared future for humankind” is a concept of multilateral cooperation in the economic, political and humanitarian spheres, as well as in the field of security, which is implemented by Beijing on a bilateral basis at the regional, interregional and global level.

With the advancement of economic globalization, in today's society where peace and development are the themes of the times, the influence of hard power, such as economic and military power, has gradually diminished. While soft power, represented by culture, political values and foreign policy, has become more and more important. The explanatory power of traditional realist theories has become increasingly weak. Against this background, Joseph S. Nye, a famous master of international relations theory and a representative of the neo-liberal school, first proposed the concept of "soft power" in 1990 in response to the "decline of the United States". "Since then, the concept of soft power has begun to attract academic attention and has gradually entered the public discourse, and has been adopted by scholars and politicians in various countries. Nye made a clear binary division of the concept of power, dividing it into hard power and soft power. According to Nye, hard power manifests itself as tangible material power, a form of control, while soft power is an intangible force of attraction and assimilation. In Nye's idea of soft power, culture, political values and foreign policy are the main resources that constitute soft power, which relies on solicitation rather than coercion and is characterised by intangibility, diffusion, non-monopoly and non-coercion. Since the mid-1990s, Chinese political and academic circles have identified the potential of soft power and have made attempts to highlight its importance. With the rise of China and related events, theories such as the 'China Threat Theory' and the 'Thucydides Trap' have emerged in the international community, suggesting that China's rise could lead to a destabilising and dangerous international situation. The soft power theory has therefore been welcomed by China as a rebuttal to these theories and an attempt to shift the world's focus to the "peaceful rise of China". This paper will reformulate and analyse China's soft power policy through Joseph Nye's concept of soft power, and will focus the discussion on China's rich cultural resources, political values and soft power resources for foreign policy. It is important to note that China's soft power policy can be successful in enhancing China's image, but given the conflicting interests of developing and developed countries. China's policy needs to be carefully crafted and well thought out. At the same time, excessive government guidance and control can enhance soft power, but according to Joseph Nye's theory, civil society should take more responsibility in building soft power.

Introduction Benjamin Tze Ern Ho (bio) Of late, Chinese scholars have argued for the need to incorporate traditional Chinese ideas into mainstream international relations (IR) theory, which is seen as privileging a Western-centric reading of international affairs. Given the global prominence of China, it behooves scholars and policymakers alike to consider how these ideas are being translated into contemporary Chinese conceptions of international order and influencing China's foreign policy practices. The four essays in this roundtable attempt to do just that. First, Feng Zhang adopts a historical perspective on the study of China's engagement with the international order and examines the implications of the Xi Jinping doctrine for the country's foreign policy. Second, Xiaoyu Pu discusses China's policies and actions in the Indo-Pacific, including its strategic calculations, its perceptions of the U.S. role in the region, and the sources of rising tensions between the United States and China. Using a "status dilemma" framework, Pu argues that Sino-U.S. competition is fueled by concerns in the United States and China that the other side seeks domination and regional hegemony, respectively. Third, Beverley Loke analyzes Chinese and U.S. discourses of great-power management. She examines how each country sees itself as a responsible stakeholder and assesses their respective approaches to a "new model of great-power relations." Finally, Catherine Jones argues that, despite the use of grand political slogans, Beijing's foreign policy practices reflect more modest objectives, not unlike the behavioral strategies of middle powers. Taken together, these essays provide important analytical insights for better understanding China's foreign policy actions and the extent to which Chinese ideas concerning international affairs are playing out in practice. The rest of this introduction provides a brief sketch of Chinese thinking about international relations in light of China's rise and its importance for our understanding of Chinese political worldviews. [End Page 2] China's prominence in international relations has emboldened Chinese IR scholars in recent years to advocate a "Chinese way" of thinking about international relations and incorporate traditional Chinese ideas into mainstream IR scholarship. Qin Yaqing, the president of the China Foreign Affairs University, observes that efforts to develop Chinese IR theory have gathered momentum since the start of the 21st century, given China's growing economic strength and international influence.1 While these concepts have yet to obtain universal traction and are still largely in an embryonic stage, the ability to theorize, as Qin puts it, "is a sign of intellectual maturity."2 Chinese scholars are increasingly using indigenous resources to articulate what they view as a unique Chinese contribution to the wider discipline. The importance of articulating a Chinese approach to IR theory lies in part in the need to establish and present Chinese national interests to the international community. In a study of the relationship between China's global ascendancy and its IR theory, Hung-Jen Wang identifies the three main features of Chinese scholarship as "identity, appropriation, and adaptation."3 In the first phase of scholarship, the identities of Chinese IR scholars were shaped by China's political systems, cultural values, and historical experiences. Such work emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s following China's reintegration into the international system. Chinese scholars next began to appropriate Western IR theories using the Chinese principle of ti-yong (substance-function)—that is, by combining Chinese concerns with the learning of foreign concepts. The third phase saw Chinese scholars adapt these concepts of Western IR scholarship (such as "balance of power" and "nation-state") to analyze events in China. To this end, Wang observes that "repeated cycles of learning and appropriation may ultimately relativize the universal values of those and other concepts found in Western IR theories so as to transform their original Western meanings."4 Similarly, in his survey of the development of IR theory in China, Qin argues that the development of IR as an academic discipline in China has moved from pre-theory to a theory-learning (or theory-deepening) stage. The theory-innovation phase, whereby scholars "seek to explain reality and understand social phenomena from a distinctly Chinese perspective," [End Page 3] has yet to materialize...

China has emerged as an economic powerhouse (projected to have the largest economy in the world in a little over a decade) and is taking an ever-increasing role on the world stage. China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities will help the United States and the rest of the world better comprehend the facts and dynamics underpinning China's rise--an understanding that becomes more and more important with each passing day. Additionally, the authors suggest actions both China and the United States can take that will not only maximize the opportunities for China's constructive integration into the international community but also help form a domestic consensus that will provide a stable foundation for such policies. Filled with facts for policymakers, this much anticipated book's narrative-driven, accessible style will appeal to the general reader. This book is unique in that it analyzes the authoritative data on China's economy, foreign and domestic policy, and national security. * The expert judgments in this book paint a picture of a China confronting domestic challenges that are in many ways side effects of its economic successes, while simultaneously trying to take advantage of the foreign policy benefits of those same successes. China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities from The China Balance Sheet Project, a joint, multiyear project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Peterson Institute, discusses China's military modernization, China's increasing soft power influence in Asia and around the world, China's policy toward Taiwan, domestic political development, Beijing's political relations with China's provincial and municipal authorities, corruption and social unrest, rebalancing China's economic growth, the exchange rate controversy, energy and the environment, industrial policy, trade disputes, and investment issues.

This chapter begins with a discussion of China's rise and its implications for regional and global power order. This is followed by an analysis of how Beijing's foreign and national security policy making is increasingly affected by the growing number of actors even as it has to confront the increasingly complex external environments. China's rise as a major power in East Asia within a short span of three decades is unprecedented in international history. A recent National Intelligence Council report predicts that China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy in a decade. China's growing power is affecting the regional and global geo-strategic environments just as they in turn impose constraints and offer opportunities for Beijing. The last few years have witnessed ostensible changes in the ways in which Beijing conducts its foreign policy. It is becoming more assertive and unequivocal in both voicing and defending what it perceives as core national interests.

The rise of China has transformed the political and economic landscape of the Asia-Pacific region. China is undeniably the new Asian powerhouse of the twenty-first century that has propelled the region's economies amid difficulties in other parts of the globe. However, despite the opportunities that China's growth offers, there are concerns over China's increasing influence and behaviour in Northeast and Southeast Asia. Economic dependence on China may constrain autonomous policymaking in smaller countries, especially on policies that impinge on Beijing's national interests. Countries across the region are concerned that China is transforming its economic strength into military might, and that its armed forces have become more assertive in the maritime domain. In the face of a rising China, many Asian countries believe that the United States remains the best guarantor of regional stability. As a result, they have facilitated an increased US military presence as part of the Obama administration's Asian pivot or rebalance. (1) However, regional states cannot be assured about the future, as historical experience is a reminder that given the vagaries of international politics, relying on the protection of an external power is not a long-term solution. (2) The United States may reduce its presence in Asia, as it did after the Vietnam War. Therefore, a general policy practice--especially in Southeast Asia--is to hedge against such an outcome. (3) In other words, regional states prefer the flexibility and pragmatism in their interactions with Washington and Beijing by continuing their engagement with China in regional affairs while keeping the United States involved as a counterweight. Despite the common stance of maintaining a balance between the United States and China, an effective hedging strategy is increasingly delicate and difficult to sustain. Recently, various factors have pushed some countries towards one power and pulled them away from the other. Maritime disputes between China and a number of Asian countries, including Japan in the East China Sea and Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei in the South China Sea, are good examples. Rising tensions in the South China Sea has resulted in Vietnam and the Philippines moving closer to the United States in an effort to deter further Chinese assertiveness. (4) For Thailand, pursuing a flexible policy towards the Great Powers is not a new diplomatic strategy. The historical legacy of Thailand's interaction with outsiders has shaped a diplomatic culture that values flexibility and pragmatism in its foreign policy. It has been dubbed bamboo bending with the wind, suggesting a policy that is always solidly rooted, but flexible enough to bend whichever way the wind blows in order to survive. (5) Guided by the principles of flexibility and pragmatism throughout its modern history, Thailand has managed to mitigate major security threats, including European colonialism in the nineteenth century, the Japanese occupation during the Second World War and the communist expansion in Southeast Asia during the Cold War. However, as with other mainland Southeast Asian states, since the end of the Cold War Thailand has faced difficulties resisting China's influence, and thus on a number of policy issues, Bangkok has gradually tilted towards Beijing. Recent developments in Thai politics and the country's foreign policy cast doubt on whether Thailand is skillful enough to maintain its traditional balancing diplomacy. Most significantly, the military coup in May 2014 has widened the rift between Thailand and the United States, and the junta has moved closer to China. (6) This article assesses Thai foreign policy and argues that the rise of China has tested the effectiveness of Thailand's flexible diplomacy. Although Thailand generally manages to maintain close ties with both Washington and Beijing, its balancing act is more ad hoc than a well-crafted strategy. …

This article explores the significance and relevance of the concept of China's peaceful rise and its implications for India. Though the concept suddenly lost its usage and was replaced by a more modest term, peaceful development, the basic tenets of the peaceful rise concept hold considerable relevance. Peaceful rise is a concept aimed at managing the consequences of China's rise as a great power. Essentially, while it reiterates China's foreign policy of peace and common development of all, it also indicates a paradigm shift in Chinese foreign policy. Since the essence of peaceful rise is to support a peaceful international order, the concept imparts a peaceful relationship between India and China.

In a seminal article published a decade and a half ago, Thomas Christensen unambiguously asserted that China might be the high church of realpolitik in the post-Cold War world, a qualification that, translated in more theoretical terms, meant that [Chinese] analysts certainly think more like traditional balance-of-power theorists than do most contemporary Western leaders and policy analysts. (1) Based on this observation, the evolution of China's foreign policy over the last two decades could have best been analysed through the use of the realist prism. However, decades of restatement and renewal in the realist research programme have made such analysis much more complicated. (2) More precisely, given the increasing complexity of the realist research programme, the question might not be so much Chinese foreign policy conforms with realism, but rather, which of the different branches of realism provides the most consistent analysis of China's policy in the contemporary international system. This article examines how the two competitive branches of structural realism--offensive and defensive realisms--perform in explaining China's rise. After outlining the main differences between the two, a comparison is made on their respective hypotheses with China's posture towards three different types of actors: the extra-regional superpower--the United States; the potential regional great powers--Japan and India; and the lesser states of Southeast Asia. Rivalling Theories: Offensive and Defensive Realisms Among several fault lines that run through the realist research programme, one of the most significant evolutions since the end of the Cold War has been the schism within the branch of structural realist. (3) While Fareed Zakaria and Randall Schweller clearly identified what they considered as defensive realism's status quo bias, (4) the offensive turn of structural realism was fully completed by John Mearsheimer. (5) Offensive realism has, however, not simply overtaken defensive realism, and both theories continue to offer competing views on the constraints produced by the international system and on the strategies great powers are likely to adopt. Defensive and offensive realisms share a set of basic assumptions about the international system. Among them are axioms concerning the centrality of the state and the rationality of international actors. More significantly, both branches of structural realism consider international anarchy to be the pivotal principle of international relations. (6) And because any state may at any time use force, all states must constantly be ready either to counter force with force or pay the cost of weakness. (7) This constant state of pervasive wariness creates the conditions for what John Herz famously termed the dilemma. Placed in an anarchic system where no supranational authority can serve as a security guarantor, states that are striving to attain security from [an] attack, are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of the power of others. This, in turn, renders the others more insecure and compels them to prepare for the worst. (8) While sharing this generally grim view of international politics, offensive and defensive realists, however, part company over the severity of the security dilemma, which means that they diverge over the level of security that international systems are likely to produce, and over the best strategy a state might adopt to ensure its security. From a defensive realist perspective, anarchy and security dilemma might not lead states to live at daggers drawn at each other. First, under some conditions, the security dilemma might be partially or totally solved. Robert Jervis developed the offence-defence balance (ODB) concept and pointed out that the severity of the dilemma depends upon whether defensive weapons and policies can be distinguished from offensive ones, and the defence or the offence has the advantage. …

Introduction - Herbert Yee 1. Power Transition Theory: A Challenge to the Peaceful Rise of World Power - Edward Friedman 2. Core Elements in a Rising China's Foreign Policy and Key Issues in Sino-American Relations - Ming K. Chan 3. China's Rise and Russia's Interests - Alexander Lukin 4. European Perspectives on China's Rise - Jean-Pierre Cabestan 5. Sino-Vatican Relations on China's Rise - Beatrice Leung 6. Middle-Eastern Perceptions of China's Rise - Yitzhak Shichor 7. Too Close for Comfort?: Japanese and Korean Perspectives on China's Rise - Brian Bridges 8. Political and Economic Friction between and Japan - Hideo Ohashi 9. Indian Perspectives on China: Concerns and Prospects - Srikanth Kondapalli 10. Accommodation with Hedging: Southeast Asia's Changing Perspectives toward - Aileen San Pablo Baviera 11. Indonesia's Perceptions of the China Threat: From Yellow from the North to Strategic Partner - Christine Susanna Tjhin 12. The China Threat in the Context of China's Peaceful Development: A View from Australia - Colin Mackerras 13. A New Era of Mainland-Taiwan Relations? - Simon T.C. Chang 14. The Response of Hong Kong and Macao to Mainland China's Emergence: Trends and Prospects - Sonny S.H. Lo 15. From China Threat to China Responsibility: Changing Perceptions about in the Western Media and China's Response - Jin Canrong

Part I: Overview 1. The Rise of China: An Overall Assessment Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao and Cheng-yi Lin Part II: Discourse on the Rise of China 2. China's Grand Strategy of Peaceful Rise: A Prelude to a New Cold War? Masako Ikegami 3. The Domestic Origin of China's Rise and Its International Impact: The Party-State Developmental Syndicate Szu-chien Hsu Part III: Domestic Consequences: Social Unrest and Economic Challenges 4. Growing Social Unrest and Emergent Protest Groups in China Chih-jou Jay Chen 5. China's Economic Development and Its Challenges To-far Wang Part IV: External Strategies to Asia-Pacific and Implications 6. China's Policies towards the Asia-Pacific Region: Changing Perceptions of Self and Changing Others' Perceptions of China?Rosemary Foot 7. The Rise of China and Territorial Disputes Srikanth Kondapalli 8. China's Policies toward the SCO and ARF: Implications for the Asia-Pacific Region Chien-peng Chung Part V: Regional Reactions to China's Rise 9. America's Perspective on China's RiseBruce Cumings 10. Japan's Views on the Rise of China and Its Implications: Bureaucratic Interests and Political Choices Yoshifumi Nakai 11. Beijing's Strategy and Implications for India Vikram Sood 12. The Rise of China and Implications for Southeast Asia: A Philippine Perspective Carolina G. Hernandez 13. Hong Kong Citizens' Evaluations of the One Country, Two Systems Practice: Assessing the Role of Political Support for China Timothy Ka-ying Wong and Shirley Po-san Wan 14. A Rising China and Hu Jintao's Taiwan Policies Wen-cheng Lin and Cheng-yi Lin Glossary

The rise of China as a major power in the international system has led it to act relatively differently in its foreign policy than in the past. China's most important behavior can be expressed in the form of the Belt and Road initiative. This initiative helped China to avoid Slowly avoid facing the United States in East Asia and also boosted Beijing's growth. The Belt and Road initiative includes a number of projects, mainly leading to a greater focus of Beijing on the country's western geographical areas. Pakistan, located on the shores of the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, has a critical role in China's new foreign policies due to its geographical location. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, launched in 2015, clearly demonstrates the importance and position of Pakistan and the growing relationship between the two countries. This article seeks to examine the role of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor from the perspective of China's new position in the international system through analytical-explanatory methods and relying on library resources. The results show that the most important benefits of the corridor for China, which can advance China's foreign policy in the current context of the international system, can be expressed in terms of the role of the economic corridor as a clear symbol of cross-border presence. China stressed the need to play the role of a major world power, gain economic benefits and strengthen China's sphere of influence from geo-economics to geostrategic, help alleviate China's security concerns, and ultimately advance China's new economic model.

Reviewed by: China Orders the World: Normative Soft Power and Foreign Policy ed. by William A. Callahan and Elena Barabantseva, and: Past and Present in China’s Foreign Policy: From “Tribute System” to “Peaceful Rise.” ed. by John E. Wills Jr. Rosita Dellios (bio) William A. Callahan and Elena Barabantseva, editors. China Orders the World: Normative Soft Power and Foreign Policy. Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. xiv + 280 pp. Hardcover $55.00, isbn 978-1-4214-0383-0. John E. Wills Jr., editor. Past and Present in China’s Foreign Policy: From “Tribute System” to “Peaceful Rise.” Portland, ME: Merwin Asia, 2010. 133 pp. Paperback $35.00, isbn 978-0-9836599-8-3. The world’s preoccupation with the rise of China appears to have gone through at least three phases in the past thirty years. First was the thrill of China the economy, with its 1.3 billion potential consumers. This period was in the heyday of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. Second, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s rise, was the spectacle of China as America’s significant other. This was accompanied by the so-called China threat theory to which China responded with its peaceful rise slogan in 2003 and the even less provocative peaceful development in 2004. [End Page 219] A more proactive turn of events occurred the following year when President Hu Jintao gave a speech at the sixtieth anniversary of the United Nations in which he urged the building of a harmonious world. Like U.S. president Barack Obama’s Prague speech calling for a world free of nuclear weapons, President Hu’s harmonious world dream may not have mattered a great deal in the greater scheme of global politics—at least not until the global financial crisis, the dollar and euro debt crises, and the ongoing global economic slowdown. China emerged far more resilient than either the United States or the European Union. This observation ushered in the third phase of external interest in China’s rise: its contribution to world order. With China routinely predicted to overtake the United States as the largest economy within a decade, the time has come to consider in greater depth how Beijing will exercise its power on the global stage. This is the question raised by China Orders the World: Normative Soft Power and Foreign Policy, published in 2011: “What will China do with this new global power? How would China run the world?” (Callahan and Barabantseva, p. 3). The question, though timely, is not a new one. Writing in the 1960s, world historian Arnold Toynbee could well have been discussing China’s role today when he said: “If a ‘Middle Empire’ was now needed as a nucleus for political unification on a global scale, China was the country that was designed by history for playing this part of world-unifier once again, this time on a literally world-wide stage.”1 For the 2010 publication, Past and Present in China’s Foreign Policy: From “Tribute System” to “Peaceful Rise,” history may not be such a useful guide because China’s current position is “without historical parallel” (Wills, p. 125). Harry Harding explains in the last chapter that two of China’s previous identities—that of the powerful Middle Kingdom with a tribute system followed by its decline as a weak state in the European treaty system—simply “no longer fit” present circumstances (Wills, p. 125). This slender volume of 133 pages is not prepared to be so bold as to speak of China running the world, as does the more detailed 280-page China Orders the World; but what it does suggest, the role of “responsible stakeholder in a globalized and increasingly institutionalized international order” (Wills, p. 125), may be only a transitional stage away from the message in China Orders the World. The latter shows the logic of an institutionalized world as being compatible with China’s own long-held philosophical concern for public order under conditions of unity. Exciting as this phase of interest in China’s rise may be, the findings in both books add nothing substantially new to the literature. This is because they are both...

This article delivers the first post-Cold War history of how France – the European power with the largest political-military footprint in the Asia-Pacific – has responded to the national security challenges posed by the rise of China. Based upon a unique body of primary sources (80 interviews conducted in Europe, the Asia-Pacific and the United States; declassified archival documents; and leaked diplomatic cables), it shows that China’s growing assertiveness after 2009 (and national policymakers’ perceptions thereof) has been the key driver of change in French security policy in the region, pulling France strategically into the Asia-Pacific. Specifically, growing threat perceptions of China’s rise – coupled with steadily rising regional economic interests – have led Paris to forge a cohesive policy framework, the Indo-Pacific strategy, and to bolster the political-military dimension of its regional presence. By investigating this key yet neglected dimension of French and European security policies, and by leveraging a unique body of primary written and oral sources, this study fills an important gap in the scholarly literature on both European and Asia-Pacific security dynamics. The findings of this article also shed new light on the political and military assets that France can bring to bear in the formulation of a common EU security policy toward the Asia-Pacific and on the implications thereof for the prospect of a transatlantic strategy vis-à-vis China.

In the last two decades, I ndonesia has been swiftly maneuvering between C hina and the U nited S tates in the context of the great powers' contest in the region. But a look further into history shows deeper dynamics of I ndonesia‐ C hina relations, in which I ndonesia demonstrates paradigm shifts of its C hina policy on the verge of C hina's rise toward great power status. This article argues for the best use of theoretical eclecticism to comprehend I ndonesia's policy perspective toward C hina's rise as a great power.