Revisionism in China's foreign policy; Progressive adherence

Khosravi, Alireza; Ajdari, Amir Hossein

doi:10.22059/jcountst.2025.397953.1314

Revisionism in China's foreign policy; Progressive adherence

Document Type : Original

Authors

Department of International Relations, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jcountst.2025.397953.1314

Abstract

The history of international politics confirms that, simultaneously with the decline of a unit(s) and the rise of another state(s) within the context of the existing order, a set of confrontations and power relations are formed in different directions, the outcome of which has manifested and emerged in a range from the continuation of the previous order to its change. This is also relevant to the rise of China in the post-Cold War era and how its foreign policy is regulated in the face of the neoliberal order led by the United States. This article, assuming a revisionist approach in China's foreign policy, emphasizes a range of different notions and signifiers of revisionism; therefore, seeks to answer the question of which of the revisionist notions and signifiers can describe China's foreign policy approach as a rising power? The research hypothesis is that China's revisionist preferences in foreign policy constituted under the existing institutional order, and in the post-Deng Xiaoping era, they have evolved from integrated revisionism to the brokerage revisionism. To examine the hypothesis, China's foreign policy during the three presidencies of Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping is analyzed using the process tracing method.

Keywords

Main Subjects

International Relations

حوزة موضوعی: چین

Scope: China

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