The Rise of China and Chinese International Relations Scholarship

(Paperback)

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Description

This book looks at the relationship between Chinese international relations (IR) scholarship and Chinas rise as a world power. Specifically, it addresses how Chinas rising international status since the early 1990s has shaped the countrys IR studies, and the different ways that Chinese IR scholars are interpreting that rise. The author argues that the development of IR studies in China has been influenced by Chinas past historical experiences, its recent change in status in world politics, and indigenous scholarly interpretations of both factors. Instead of treating Chinese IR scholars as value-free social scientists, the author shows how Chinese scholarsas purposive, strategic, and emotional actorstend to manipulate existing (mostly Western) IR theories to support their policy propositions and identity statements. This book represents one of few efforts to determine how local Chinese scholars are constructing IR knowledge, how they are dealing with intersections between indigenous Chinese and imported IR theory and concepts, and how Chinese scholars are analyzing their China in terms of its current rise to power.

Reviews

Hung-jen Wang has written one of the first books, if not the first book, to systematically examine the relationship between Chinas rise and the study of international relations in China. Given the growing influence of China in international affairs, it has become increasingly imperative for the outside world to understand Chinese scholars' unique outlooks on international relations, especially their views of Chinas rise. This book is a welcome addition to facilitate the constructive dialog between Chinese and Western scholars of international relations. -- Suisheng Zhao, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, and Editor of Journal of Contemporary China

Author Bio

Hung-jen Wang received his doctorate in Political Science from the University of Tbingen, Germany. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Kte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany (2012-2013). The authors research interests include international relations (IR) theory, international security, Chinese foreign policy, cross-Strait relations, and Taiwanese democratization.