Moral Discourse and Ritual in Contemporary Chinese Diplomacy

Abstract

This chapter looks at the two most distinctive features of China’s contemporary vision for a hierarchical international order in Asia, namely, its moralizing diplomatic discourse and the role of rituals and ‘codes of proper conduct’ in its diplomatic practice. It shows that PRC leaders have consistently argued they offer a ‘better type’ of international relations than the Western one and that Xi Jinping has supplemented this message with callbacks to an idealized vision of China’s imperial past, meant to highlight its unique benevolence today. The chapter also looks at the way Chinese leaders have sought diplomatic recognition of their special position among Asian states, on whom they still tried to impose standards of ‘correct’ behaviour in a manner reminiscent of imperial times. Xi Jinping has doubled down on those efforts, both in trying to define standards of conduct for China’s neighbours and in seeking to establish a pattern of Asian diplomacy that regularly reaffirms China’s place at the centre of the region.