SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis seeks to build analytical framework bridging the domestic and international factors in driving China’s foreign policy making in Xi’s era. This thesis has been suited with the context of Xi’s first two terms, when it has witnessed with tighter grip of Xi’s personal power within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and in China. At the same time, China’s foreign policy has been experiencing the shift from “keeping a low profile” to assertive and aggressive foreign posture. In the attempt to link the interaction of China’s internal and external factors, the analytical framework this thesis provided identifies four key drivers. With the core of preserving the Party’s legitimacy as the first and foremost driver, the Party-centric nationalism has risen to the second determinant factor driving China’s assertive and aggressive foreign shift; meanwhile, pragmatic approach of economic growth and development takes a back seat to nationalistic sentiments and has been increasingly instrumentalised in shaping China’s foreign policy; and lastly, the least influential variable at a realist dimension of China’s national interests and reputation gives ways to the first three factors. This thesis provides a perspective of relational interaction among the four driving factors. Applying neoclassical realism as an entry point, this theory provides grounding for the integration of domestic and external factors in the making of China’s foreign policy. In addition, this theory’s exploration of state-society relation also inspires the generation of this analytical framework. This research finds that neoclassical realism lacks a strong explanatory power for the specific context of China. In the study of driving forces behind China’s foreign policy making, the analytical framework this research provided reveals that the independent variable and ultimate factor is rooted in China’s domestic arena, with the core of CCP’s legitimacy preservation and the realist national consideration as the least determinant factor— not the other way around in the neoclassical realism’s definition.