Controversial Identity of a Rising China

Abstract

How a rising power adapts to its new status is an important challenge in international relations. Since the global financial crisis, Chinese scholars have hotly debated China’s international positioning. The ongoing debate reveals a high level of uncertainty about China’s position in the world. While the notion of the ‘revival of the Chinese nation’ implies the clear goal of ‘making China great again’, China’s ultimate place on the global stage is unclear. Many Chinese scholars might want China to become richer and stronger, but disagree on whether or not China should eventually seek superpower status. Regarding strategies, Chinese scholars also debate whether China should maintain a low profile or strive for greater achievements in global affairs. This article takes a ‘status signalling’ approach to explain why Chinese scholars take various positions in this debate. Status signalling aims either to change or maintain a special type of ‘status belief’ among relevant political actors. China must manage its conflicting roles in ways that advance its interests but do not engender dangerous misperceptions. In particular, China must balance the competing incentives between resolve and reassurance, status and responsibilities, and the domestic and international audience. These competing incentives have shaped the Chinese debate on international positioning.

Introduction

Shortly after Xi Jinping became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he made a speech about his new slogan, the ‘Chinese Dream’, which means realization of ‘the great renewal of the Chinese nation’.¹ Xi also laid out the ‘two centenary goals’, which are to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society by 2020, and to realize the great renewal of the Chinese nation by the middle of the century.² The idea of ‘rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ has been a major theme promoted by several generations of Chinese leaders. Any political leader aiming to maintain legitimacy in modern China must redress the problem of the ‘century of humiliation’ and restore China’s rightful place in the world as a powerful nation.³ Thus, the ‘Chinese Dream’ slogan has the important political function of mobilizing domestic support. However, the slogan’s international implications are subject to different interpretations. Does the ‘revival of the Chinese nation’ mean that China should become a hegemonic power in Asia as well as the world? For some, the ‘Chinese Dream’ sends a clear message. For Yan Xuetong, the national rejuvenation of China means that China should restore its historical international status, achieved during the Tang dynasty, as the world’s most advanced state. Thus, China’s comprehensive national power must catch up with that of the United States.⁴ Liu Mingfu holds that China and the United States will pursue an Olympic-style competition for global leadership.⁵ Michael Pillsbury, a former Pentagon official, claims that China has a ‘secret strategy’ to replace the United States as the leading world power.⁶ These interpretations imply that China wants to become another superpower, or even the world’s most powerful nation.

But does it? There are several reasons why the answer is not that clear. First of all, Chinese officials have a long tradition of opposing superpower status. In his first speech at the United Nations in 1974 Deng Xiaoping said, ‘China is not a superpower, nor will it ever seek to be one. If one day China should change its colour and turn into a superpower … the people of the world should expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.’⁷ Deng made this speech in the 1970s, when China was ideologically radical, economically weak, and diplomatically isolated. In the current ‘opening and reform’ era, China has become the world’s second-largest economy, with an expanding global presence. However, Chinese officials still avoid describing China as a potential superpower. They associate superpower status with hegemony, which has a negative connotation in the Chinese context. Secondly, while the international audience increasingly views China as an emerging superpower that should take a leadership role, many among the Chinese elite and general public still emphasize that China is a developing country, and should not be eager to take a leadership role in global affairs.⁸ Thirdly, Chinese intellectuals and policymakers are ill prepared for China’s sudden high profile in global affairs, and some continue to downplay China’s high profile. For instance, according to Chinese senior diplomat Cui Tiankai, ‘We have been elevated in the eyes of others against our will. We have no intention to compete for global leadership.’⁹ While scholars such as Yan Xuetong think China should replace the United States as the world’s number one nation,¹⁰ others, such as Wang Jisi and Zhang Ruizhuang, suggest that even a number two status might be too high for China.¹¹

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, Chinese scholars and policymakers have heatedly debated China’s status and role in the world.¹² The ongoing scholarly and policy debate reveals a high level of uncertainty about China’s position on the global stage. As Henry Kissinger pointed out, a fundamental question about China is that of ‘the nature of its place in the world’.¹³ While the notion of the ‘revival of the Chinese nation’ implies the clear goal of ‘making China great again’, China’s ultimate place on the global stage is unclear. Will a rising China seek to challenge or even to replace the United States as the new superpower? Is China a challenger or a supporter of the existing global order? Should China primarily position itself as an emerging superpower or as a developing country?

It is critical to investigate how and why the Chinese are debating China’s international positioning on the world stage. First of all, China’s international positioning relates to the fundamental relationship between China and the existing international order. The nature and content of the international system in the coming decades will partially depend upon what roles the emerging powers, especially China, decide to play.¹⁴ Secondly, the debate shapes how China deals with a range of international issues. For instance, should China primarily position itself in climate change negotiations as a developing country or a responsible great power? China’s complex roles in the international arena led to inconsistencies that plagued its position during the Copenhagen climate negotiations.¹⁵ Finally, China’s international positioning also shapes how the established powers might respond to the rise of China. For instance, if China were seeking to grow within the existing liberal order, the Sino–American relationship might not be a zero-sum game, and the United States could be largely willing to accommodate China’s rise.¹⁶ However, if China were seeking to replace the United States as a new superpower, a Sino–American conflict might be inevitable.¹⁷ In recent years, China’s more assertive posturing has partially contributed to the rethinking of US strategy towards China.¹⁸

This article will proceed as follows. The first section discusses the conceptualization of international positioning. The second section explains the origin and context of the debate, and in particular analyses why international positioning is becoming such an important Chinese foreign policy issue. The third section identifies the consensuses and differences among Chinese scholars, and the fourth section provides a theoretical model to explain the differences among Chinese scholars. The conclusion summarizes the article’s findings and their implications.

China’s International Positioning: Definition

What does international positioning mean? Originally a business management concept, ‘positioning’ (dingwei) refers to efforts to build a new image for a company or product. ¹⁹ Like a rapidly growing company trying to redefine its position and brand, China aims to project a new image and to establish a new position in the international order. In business, positioning or branding is the creation of a name or symbol, or a combination of the two, for an established brand with the intention of developing a differentiated position.²⁰ The concept of branding or positioning can also be applied in politics and international relations (IR).²¹ Some Chinese scholars conceptualize China’s positioning or dingwei as a matter of ‘diplomatic transformation’ (waijiao zhuanxing).²²

According to Chinese scholars, Wang Jisi and Cai Tuo, the heated debate over China’s dingwei within China’s foreign policy community is unique, as there are no systemic studies of dingwei in the broader literature of IR.²³ While Wang and Cai’s assessment of the Chinese scholarly literature might be accurate, I argue that the topic of China’s international positioning can be analysed from a more theoretical perspective. Viewed in a broader context, ‘the logic of positionality’ is becoming increasingly important in the IR literature.²⁴ The logic of positionality proposes that hierarchies in world politics can constitute or make the salient actors’ position-contingent roles. This implies that ‘the content of what actors want and what is important to them depends in part on where they are positioned in a hierarchical order’.²⁵ The challenge of how a great power adapts to its new status is not a uniquely Chinese problem. Rising and declining powers often face obstacles to objectively evaluating their shifting power and how to adjust their policy accordingly. Not only the uncertainty and complexity inherent in the international system constrain the objective assessment of power and status at a national level; domestic politics could also complicate the process of strategic adjustments, leading to various pathologies, such as under-expansion, over-expansion, and under-balance.²⁶ In the late 19th century, for example, domestic political fragmentation inhibited the ability of the declining Britain to assess accurately its relative power position.²⁷ Under what conditions will a rising power pursue an over-expansionist policy? When and why will a rising power pursue a shirking policy?²⁸

International positioning has subjective, objective, and inter-subjective dimensions. The subjective dimension refers to the identity and status narrative. In social interactions, the narrative identity is the foundation of positioning or image projection. As individuals may have multiple selves, a nation can also have different national identity narratives.²⁹ The objective dimension refers to the material capabilities a country might have. Economic and military capabilities constitute the material foundation of a country’s position in the international pecking order. The inter-subjective dimension refers to the recognition of a country’s position by an international audience. By analysing the domestic debate on China’s international positioning, this article will focus on the subjective dimension of international positioning. Although the objective dimension of China’s positioning is still important, the objective indicators of China’s international positioning are straightforward. For instance, no reasonable scholar would deny that China became the second-largest economy in 2010. The inter-subjective dimension of international positioning is also relevant, but it is not the focus of this article. That said, the subjective and inter-subjective dimensions of international positioning can be logically and theoretically linked. As Robert Jervis has pointed out, signalling and perceptions are two sides of the same coin in IR.³⁰ Based on Jervis’s argument, when a state tries to project a particular image it will estimate how these signals might be perceived and recognized by other countries.

It should be noted that, in the Chinese context, the issue of international positioning overlaps other concepts, such as status, role, and identity, but these are not necessarily the same.³¹ The common ground of these concepts lies in their helping us to conceptualize the position of a state in international society. The key difference is that positioning seems to be more comprehensive and dynamic than the concepts of status and identity. This article will focus on international positioning while occasionally touching upon the concepts of status and identity. In particular, it will examine three core questions related to China’s international positioning: first, what is China’s status and identity in the international system? Secondly, what is China’s long-term goal? Thirdly, what should China’s strategy be to fulfil its goal? They can be thus simplified: ‘Who are we? Where are we going? What are we going to do?’ Among the three, that of ‘where are we going?’ is the most crucial. As Henry Kissinger recently observed, the Chinese strategic tradition emphasizes long-term trends.³² The question of ‘where are we going’ might hence reflect a long-term perspective on China’s strategic orientation in IR.

The Debate on China’s International Positioning: Origin and Context

Why has international positioning become such a hot topic in China’s foreign policy community? Why have Chinese scholars debated this issue in recent years? In this section, we will analyse the origins and context of the debate. In 2009, Cai Tuo, director of the Global Studies Institute at China University of Political Science and Law, hosted a major conference on China’s international positioning. Participants included scholars from China’s key universities, as well as policymakers from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.³³ It was a comprehensive conference in China focusing solely on international positioning. According to Cai, there are four reasons why international positioning has become an important topic: first, the rapid transformation of the international system; secondly, China faces growing structural pressure; thirdly, China is confused about its identity and role; and finally, the international community has growing expectations of China, and is becoming more suspicious of China’s role.³⁴ According to this perspective, both international and domestic factors compel China to clarify its position in the international system.

Borrowing the ‘the level of analysis’ framework in IR,³⁵ we can identify the origin and context of the debate on three levels. At the international level, China’s international positioning has changed dramatically in recent years, and two events were especially salient in shaping the debate: the first was the global financial crisis of 2008, which drove China to the centre stage of global economic governance. The second was China’s surpassing Japan in 2010 as the world’s second-largest economy. To some extent, China’s economic status has exceeded the expectations of China’s political and intellectual elite. In a 2005 Foreign Affairs article, Zheng Bijian, a political advisor to the Chinese leadership, observed, ‘China’s economy is one-seventh the size of the United States’ and one-third the size of Japan’s.’³⁶ It is hence unlikely that Chinese elites had any expectation that in just five years China’s economy would surpass Japan’s. Although China now has higher international status, certain Chinese elites are nevertheless ill prepared for the country’s sudden high profile in the global community.

At the domestic level, China’s foreign-policymaking process has become more complicated and fragmented. Different institutions and government agencies sometimes advocate different foreign interests and policy priorities.³⁷ Chinese scholars have greater opportunity to participate in the policy deliberation processes hosted by various government institutions, and the ever more complex decision-making process has created space for diverse voices to emerge.

At the individual level, the scholars’ theoretical preferences also shape the debate. As observations are often theory-laden, Chinese scholars conceptualize differently the key problems of international positioning, largely according to their particular theoretical perspectives. There is a tendency where scholars with an international liberal orientation often emphasize the ‘soft’ dimensions of China’s international positioning, such as soft power, international institutions, and provision of global public goods. Scholars with a nationalistic or realist orientation, meanwhile, lay emphasis on the material power and critical perspective of China’s place in the Western-dominated international society. For instance, Chen Yugang suggests that China’s international positioning should be viewed from the perspective of ‘global relations’, rather than ‘international relations’. According to Chen, ‘global relations’ has transnational dimensions, and China should clarify its goal and strategy through global vision.³⁸ Cai Tuo identifies China’s value system and soft power as among key issues related to the country’s international positioning.³⁹ Pang Zhongying suggests that the most important thing for China is to resolve the identity issue ‘who am I’, so that it may then clarify its foreign policy.⁴⁰ In contrast to these soft power and identity perspectives, Tang Yongsheng regards evaluations of China’s comprehensive power (including territory, population, economy, technology, and military) as the foundation of China’s international positioning.⁴¹ Wang Xianghui maintains that China should not forget its ‘critical perspective’ while integrating into international society.⁴²

There are also scholars who take a middle ground approach. Highlighting the importance of evaluating China’s capabilities and power, Wang Jisi suggests that the key lies in clarifying the Taoguangyanghui (maintaining a low profile) strategy.⁴³ Men Honghua holds that it is crucial to clarify China’s various national attributes: institutionally, positioning itself as a socialist country; socio-economically, as a large developing country; culturally, as a cultural power with traditional resources; politically, as a responsible great power; and strategically, as a great power in the Asia-pacific region.⁴⁴

The Debate on China’s International Positioning: Consensuses and Differences

Consensuses and differences are apparent in the debate among Chinese scholars on China’s international positioning. Most agree that China has multiple identities, but seem to disagree on which identity should be most salient. Also, while Chinese scholars want China to become richer and stronger in the future, they disagree on the ultimate destination of China’s rise on the global stage. In particular, they debate whether or not China should become a new superpower and replace the United States as the next global leader. Regarding strategies, Chinese scholars are actively debating whether China should maintain a low profile or strive for achievement in a new era.

Regarding the question of China’s identity and status, Chinese scholars generally agree that China does not have a fixed identity; rather, China is a state with a political discourse grounded in several competing ideologies and narratives.⁴⁵ As China occupies multiple positions in world politics, it has to manage these conflicted identities and roles. For instance, China has the interests of both a developing country and a developed one, and it is both a weak country and a strong one. Possessing multiple identities, China finds it increasingly difficult to define its interests in a coherent way.⁴⁶

There are at least five narratives on China’s identities that are widely recognized in Chinese IR discourse. First, China is a socialist country with Chinese characteristics. That the CCP is the ruling party is the key feature of the Chinese system. As Yuan Peng said, ‘Westerners sometimes exaggerate China’s socialist characteristics and revert to the label “communist”, while at other times ignoring China’s socialist nature and dealing with it as if it were purely capitalist. Neither caricature adequately captures the complex nature of the Chinese economy, development model, or social policies.’⁴⁷ According to Wang Jisi, Chinese leaders are especially sensitive to ‘domestic disorder caused by foreign threats’. ⁴⁸

Secondly, China is a developing country. While China’s economy is now the world’s second-largest, many China indicators still reflect a relatively low developmental level. Thirdly, China is an ‘emerging great power’ (xinxing daguo) and ‘rising power’ (jueqi guo). As an emerging power, China shares the same status as other BRICS countries (Brazil, India, Russia, and South Africa). Originally coined as a purely economic term by the Goldman Sachs investment bank, BRICS has emerged in the 21st century as a group of influential great powers. ‘Emerging power’ has become a buzzword in Chinese IR discourse. Although academic discussions of China as a ‘rising power’ earlier emerged,⁴⁹ the Chinese government started more explicitly to acknowledge China’s ‘rising power’ status in the years 2013 and 2014. By highlighting The Thucydides Trap as analogous to the Sino–American challenge, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping proposed building a ‘New Type of Great Power Relations’ with the United States. From this perspective, managing tensions with the number one power has become an ever more urgent challenge for China,⁵⁰ a perspective that seems to position China as the number two power in the international pecking order.

Fourthly, China is an established great power. While international observers often view China as an emerging power, they sometimes ignore the fact that China has become one of the established great powers. Deng Xiaoping once said, ‘In the so-called multi-polar world, China too will be a pole. We should not belittle our own importance: one way or another, China will be counted as a pole.’⁵¹ Finally, China is a regional power in East Asia, and has been a predominant power there for thousands of years, which carries foreign policy implications in the contemporary era.⁵² Some Chinese regard China’s leading status in the region as natural rather than as challenging the status quo.⁵³ In light of the trade-offs between China’s different identities, Chinese scholars tend to emphasize different aspects of China’s identities and status. For instance, Cai Tuo argues that China should embrace the identity of an emerging great power, while Hu Jian emphasizes the importance of China’s identity as a developing country.⁵⁴

Regarding the question of China’s long-term goals, Chinese elites have a clear sense of general direction but an unclear sense of ultimate destination. Modern Chinese leaders always strive to build China into a ‘rich nation with a strong army’ (Fuguo qiangbin).⁵⁵ President Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream slogan seems to reflect a continuity of modern Chinese political tradition rather than a creation of something entirely new. However, Chinese scholars have different beliefs regarding long-term goals. In particular, they ask, should China eventually become a superpower and play a leadership role on the global stage? As earlier mentioned, Chinese scholars, such as Yan Xuetong and Liu Mingfu, hold that China’s ultimate goal is to replace the United States as the next global leader. From these perspectives, a status competition between China and the United States is inevitable. While China has the potential capabilities to be a superpower, the idea of superpower status is politically controversial in China. For one thing, ‘superpower’ status has a negative connotation in China’s diplomatic discourse, as it is often associated with ‘imperialism’ or ‘hegemony’. While some scholars support the idea of China as an emerging superpower, Chinese officials and other scholars typically do not embrace this notion. According to Wang Jisi, even though China possesses the second-largest economy, the country still lags far behind America, Japan, and Europe as regards innovation, quality of life, and soft power influence.⁵⁶

Finally, regarding the question of China’s strategy, should China play a more active role on the world stage? Scholars in China’s foreign policy circle actively debate the opportunities and responsibilities of being a great power. Two decades ago, Deng Xiaoping set a guiding principle for China’s diplomacy, emphasizing that China should ‘hide its capabilities and bide its time’. This low-profile approach is widely known in China as the Tao Guang Yang Hui (TGYH) strategy.⁵⁷ In recent years, the Chinese foreign policy community has been debating what signal China should send to the domestic and international audiences. Many Chinese scholars, such as Wang Jisi and Qin Yaqing, argue that China should continue maintaining a low profile.⁵⁸ Yet, according to Yan Xuetong, ‘the striving for achievement’ strategy has served China well in defending China’s national interests while maintaining relatively good relations with many countries.⁵⁹ To overcome the political and ideational obstacles to China’s playing a larger role, Wang Yizhou suggests using ‘creative involvement’ to conceptualize China’s more active approach to global affairs.⁶⁰

Regarding China’s strategy, there is also debate on how to conceptualize Xi Jinping’s assertive diplomacy.⁶¹ Although China still has several incentives to keep a low profile, Xi Jinping has started to modify China’s low-profile approach by pursuing a more proactive diplomacy. From 24 October to 25 October, 2013, Beijing held a major conference in Asia on China’s regional diplomacy. The meeting laid out certain long-term goals of China’s regional diplomacy.⁶² Besides holding this conference on regional diplomacy, Xi has initiated a range of proactive regional diplomacy events, and it was at one of these that Xi spoke for the first time of China’s grand strategy of needing to embrace ‘a new great power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics’ (you Zhongguo tese de xinxing daguo waijiao), to craft a ‘new type of great power relations’ (xinxing daguo guanxi) with the United States.⁶³ In light of this change in Xi Jinping’s foreign policy, certain scholars, such as Yan Xuetong, argue that China has abandoned the low-profile approach, and that China’s top leadership has embraced the ‘striving for achievement’ strategy. While acknowledging the rapid change in Xi’s foreign policy, Qin Yaqing sees both continuity and change in Chinese foreign policy. As Qin points out, ‘a strident turn from one strategy to the other is inadvisable, and indeed continuity through change is a realistic description of China’s present international strategy’.⁶⁴

Interpretation of the Debate: A Status Signalling Model

Why do Chinese scholars take different positions on China’s international positioning? To conceptualize the relationship between scholars and the foreign-policymaking process in China, Huiyun Feng and Kai He propose four models: the epistemic community model, free market model, signalling model, and policy mirroring model.⁶⁵ These different models highlight the different relationships between scholarly debates and foreign policymaking in China. It should be noted that the four models are hubristic frameworks which might help us understand the relationship in China between the academic world and the policy process. They are not meant to be exclusive of each other. While acknowledging that all four models are valid, I have chosen the signalling model to interpret the Chinese debate, because it is perhaps most relevant to its core issue, namely, China’s positioning in international society.⁶⁶ According to Feng and He, the signalling model refers to situations where Chinese scholars help the government to test social and international responses to new policy ideas or changes.⁶⁷ In other words, scholars that have a close relationship with the government can facilitate policymakers’ signalling of certain controversial ideas to the outside world. I modify the signalling model in two respects. First, I focus on ‘status signalling’ rather than conventional signalling. Status signalling refers to the information transmission mechanism that aims either to change or maintain a special type of ‘status belief’ among relevant political actors.⁶⁸ Secondly, I highlight the significance of both domestic and international audiences rather than solely the ‘outside world’. As status signalling is a multi-level game wherein the state leadership pivots between domestic and international audiences, Chinese leaders face competing pressure from these audiences to project different images.

My use of a signalling model to explain the Chinese scholarly debate raises the question: to what extent in IR do Chinese scholars serve the purpose of state signalling? Here are some caveats. First, China has a vibrant scholarly IR community where genuinely academic debates take place on a range of issues. In this sense, I make no claim that the aim of all Chinese scholars is simply to serve Chinese government propaganda. Secondly, even though some scholars might intentionally serve the Chinese government’s purposes, they cannot be credible messengers in situations of diplomatic crisis; intentions that are signalled by scholars in the context of an international crisis might be too strident. That said, the scholarly debate can perform a signalling function in several respects. First, as Feng and He describe, the scholarly debate could help the Chinese government in its testing of waters. When implementing new policy, it might be prudent for the government to observe the reactions of domestic and international audiences, and the scholarly debate can facilitate this process.⁶⁹ Secondly, as some scholars also participate in policy deliberation, their diverse opinions could help outsiders to appreciate the range of China’s policy choices. Finally, the hawkish and dovish voices in China’s IR community sometimes represent both side of the same coin as China sets out to project its preferred image. As Robert Jervis observes, to achieve strategic advantages, states might at times wish to be feared, or even seen as irrational.⁷⁰ Certain hawkish voices that feature openly in the Chinese media might confuse international observers, but such voices could be more appropriately construed as part of government efforts to shape the perceptions of domestic and international audiences.⁷¹

To conceptualize the fundamental question of China’s rise, some scholars have identified the security dilemma as a core challenge: as China upgrades its military capabilities, this will lead to an arms race and generate a regional backlash.⁷² Sun Xuefeng conceptualizes China’s major challenge as that of a ‘rising dilemma’: how can a rising power transform its material power into systematic influence while reducing the security challenges posed by the international system?⁷³ Although these studies have shed new light on China’s challenges, their focus—solely on security—is too narrow. I propose that we could conceptualize China’s rise and its implications more broadly. A rising China faces a variety of challenges, some of which do not necessarily relate to traditional security.

Why does China increasingly acknowledge its ‘rising power’ status while at the same time emphasizing its developing country status? Here I am using a status signalling theory to explain China’s behaviours. The purpose of status signalling is to demonstrate a state’s preferred ranking in international society. To indicate Great Power status, a rising power could build aircraft carriers, join major international organizations, and host the Olympic Games. However, a rising power could also employ ‘strategic spinning’ to demonstrate its preferred status, through statements and speeches.⁷⁴ At the individual level, a person ‘spins’ by telling a story that emphasizes certain facts and links them in ways that play to his advantage, at the same time downplaying inconvenient facts. As a communicative act, political leaders often use spin to persuade their targeted audiences to accept one particular interpretation of social reality.

A rising power might have different ‘possible selves’. In psychology, ‘possible selves represent individuals ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming, thus providing a conceptual link between cognition and motivation’.⁷⁵ China might have various ‘possible selves’: the collectively shared ideas of what China might become, what China would like to become, and what China is afraid of becoming. A rising power might have different attributes regarding status and capabilities, and the multiple attributes of a rising power provide conditions for its government to highlight certain dimensions rather than others. When a rising power aims to enhance its status to gain more privileges, it will highlight its strength. When a rising power tries to shirk greater responsibilities, it will downplay its strength. When a rising power aims to consolidate political support from the developing countries, it will highlight its status as a developing country for solidarity purposes. In other words, China sometimes sticks to its original developing country status and at other times emphasizes its newly acquired rising power status. In emphasizing different aspects of its identities, China’s motivations are largely instrumental rather than symbolic.

However, China’s power and capabilities have increased rapidly, and its international environment has changed dramatically. This rapid change has created a growing inconsistency between China’s traditional diplomatic narrative and its newly acquired international status.⁷⁶ Such an inconsistency or ambiguity provides space for scholars to debate the meanings and implications of China’s international positioning. China’s challenge, as it advances, will be to manage its conflicting roles in ways that advance its national interests but avoid engendering dangerous misperceptions and expectations among multiple audiences. A rising China, therefore, faces competing incentives to project its image and status on the global stage. In particular, China must balance the competing incentives between resolve and reassurance, status and responsibilities, the Global North (West) and the Global South, and domestic audiences and international audiences. I argue that these competing incentives have shaped Chinese debates on international positioning. Most Chinese scholars agree that China has multiple identities; their differences seem to focus on which aspect China should emphasize.

First of all, the debate among Chinese scholars reflects the uneasy balance for a rising China between the signalling of resolve and of reassurance as the country rises in the international system. China’s reassurance relates to its policy of endeavouring to divert fears among other countries about its growing power. China has repeatedly reassured the established powers and its regional neighbours that its future posture will be peaceful and non-threatening.⁷⁷ Chinese elites are eager to reassure the world of China’s non-threatening intentions to the extent of changing the ‘peaceful rise’ (heping jueqi) slogan to that of ‘peaceful development’ (heping fazhan).⁷⁸ While the fundamental message of the two concepts is essentially the same, ‘peaceful rise’ has a more competitive nuance, because the notion of ‘rise’ implies enhancement of China’s status, and hence a ‘decline’ in that of other countries. Thus, Chinese leaders opted for the term ‘peaceful development’ rather than ‘peaceful rise’.⁷⁹ However, as China rises, it must also defend its claims by signalling resolve. Thus, the balance between signalling resolve and reassurance has shaped how Chinese scholars emphasize different aspects of Chinese foreign policy. The most interesting case is Zhang Ruizhuang’s argument. In earlier years, when the country was much weaker, Zhang strongly opposed China’s low-profile approach (TGYH) because he thought China should rather signal resolve to defend its claims. However, in recent years Zhang has championed a low-profile approach. He maintains that China’s rise has generated strategic uncertainty and anxiety in the West (especially in the United States),⁸⁰ and that China must now be extremely cautious and prudent. Signalling reassurance to the international community is more crucial than ever in a new era where China is becoming a much stronger power.

Secondly, the Chinese debate reflects the competing incentives between seeking great power status and shirking unwanted responsibilities. China has many reasons to signal its great power status. In the scholarly literature, China is often viewed as a ‘prestige maximizer’, with a strong sense of status insecurity or status anxiety.⁸¹ There are psychological and political motivations to close the gap between a rising power’s desired status and actual status.⁸² In recent years, China has carefully crafted its image as a strong nation, through various high-profile projects like the Beijing Olympic Games and the Shanghai Expo. However, China also has a strong incentive to signal a lower status to avoid taking on unwanted responsibilities. Chinese political elites argue that since China remains a developing country, keeping a low profile in the coming decades will allow China to concentrate on domestic priorities. The Chinese government is keen to emphasize that China is still essentially a poor country with many domestic problems to resolve. Having achieved such a high global profile, China has generated high expectations that it will provide global public goods. However, a high profile that brings with it high expectations is not what Chinese leaders willing to deal with at this stage of China’s rise. The Copenhagen climate summit became a forum where different understandings of global responsibility clashed. The speech Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made at the summit made China’s position as a developing country abundantly clear. Premier Wen emphasized the principle in environmental issues of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’. Given the speed and size of its economic miracle, China may be expected to experience growing pains as it transforms from a regional to a global player, and hence reluctant to take on major international responsibilities with respect to the global economy, climate change, and security crises. Instead, it may choose to focus inward, negotiating favourable international deals while shouldering fewer global burdens than other major powers would expect. Some Chinese scholars, such as Hu Jian, hold that dealing with China’s domestic challenges constitutes an important part of the country’s international responsibilities.⁸³ China’s domestic development is beneficial to the rest of the world because Chinese consumption could boost world economic growth in the long term. However, certain other scholars propose that China should not shirk greater responsibilities, because by accepting them it could contribute to global governance, and build China’s moral leadership on the global stage.⁸⁴

Thirdly, the Chinese debate reflects China’s unique position as a large developing country. While striving for great power status China also wants, for political purposes, to maintain developing country solidarity. A rising power like China can consolidate its political influence by emphasizing its identity as a ‘developing country’. South–south unity and cooperation has long constituted a core component of Chinese foreign policy.⁸⁵ China has always declared that it stands with the developing world. China’s South–South policy has been influenced by diverse factors, and largely shaped by its domestic priorities. Since the global financial crisis, although China’s international status has been enhanced, China has nevertheless emphasized that it belongs to the South, or the developing world. The developing country identity has always been a important strand of China’s diplomacy.⁸⁶ The People’s Republic of China (PRC) achieved its seat at the United Nations over Taiwan largely due to support from the developing world. During the Cold War, China and the Soviet Union competed vigorously to woo support from the developing and Communist countries.⁸⁷ In the late 1970s, Beijing started its economic reforms, and China gradually abandoned its image as a radical revolutionary power. China’s identity as a developing nation has intensified since the end of the Cold War. Having attempted to break through its initial isolation after the Tiananmen incident, China also looked for alternative sources of support after the collapse of the communist bloc.⁸⁸ Furthermore, as China’s economic growth continues, economic interests and natural resources have been major driving forces behind the country’s engagement with the developing world.⁸⁹ Economic relations have also helped China to strengthen its political influence in the developing world. By underlining its identity as a developing country, China endeavours to strengthen its representation and voice in the global governance structure. China has asserted its discontent with the current global order and demanded a greater say for developing countries that will ultimately lead to parity with the developed world.⁹⁰

China might not want to be viewed as a leader of the developing world, as Deng Xiaoping famously declared that China ‘should never seek a leadership position’ (juebu dangtou) within the developing world.⁹¹ However, this approach conflicts increasingly with the reality of China’s foreign policy practice: through active participation in South–South cooperation, China has held the default status of a leader of the developing world, and there are also growing international expectations that China should play a more active role in that sphere. Moreover, in recent years China has strengthened its efforts to build multilateral forums and institutions within the developing world.⁹² Wang Jisi and Men Honghua maintain that China is a typical developing country no longer, and that China could self-identify primarily as a country capable of bridging the developed world (Global North) and the developing world (Global South).⁹³

Finally, the Chinese debate reflects the uneasy balance between domestic and international incentives. China has the second-largest economy, strong military power, and privileged membership in major international organizations. Why should China struggle for still more status?⁹⁴ I argue that China’s continuous struggle for international status is increasingly driven by domestic political calculations. The global financial crisis has transformed China from a peripheral member to a key player in global governance, and has also boosted China’s ideational confidence in its political economic model. ‘It is a popular notion among Chinese political elites, including some national leaders, that China’s development model provides an alternative to Western democracy and experiences for other developing countries to learn from, while many developing countries that have introduced Western values and political systems are experiencing disorder and chaos.’⁹⁵ While China’s domestic politics have driven China to take a more ‘assertive turn’ in diplomacy, some Chinese scholars have begun to worry about an international backlash. In this sense, multiple audiences and complicated incentives have shaped the way in which Chinese scholars debate China’s international positioning.

Conclusion

As China’s development has entered a new stage, there is increasing uncertainty over China’s identity and roles. As the China expert Lowell Dittmer observes: ‘The truth may be that China, like a young adult, is now more confused about its national identity than it was when it was more radical and less developed. To some extent this confusion has affected images of China among other countries as well.’⁹⁶

Like a rapidly growing company trying to redefine its goal and brand, a rising China is trying to establish a new position in the international system. China’s rapid rise generates new uncertainty and confusion about its status and role on the world stage. Chinese scholars are actively debating China’s international positioning. While China should clarify its position in the international pecking order, Chinese scholars have incentives to emphasize different aspects of China’s status and identities. While some Chinese scholars see international positioning as a uniquely Chinese problem, the topic could be examined from a broader theoretical perspective. The challenge of how a rising power adapts to its new status is not a uniquely Chinese problem. Rising powers often face obstacles to objectively evaluating their shifting power and adjusting to the new reality accordingly.

As Chinese scholars debate China’s positioning, they achieve consensus but also have differences. Most scholars agree that China has multiple identities, including that of socialist country, developing country, rising power, great power, and East Asian regional power. Chinese scholars seem to disagree on which identity should be most salient, but have a clear sense of China’s direction; namely, they want to make China great again. However, they appear to be at odds as to the ultimate destination of China’s rise on the global stage. In particular, they disagree on whether or not China should seek to become a new superpower. Moreover, Chinese scholars are actively debating whether China should continue to maintain a low profile or actively strive for achievement in a new era.

To explain various positions on China’s international positioning, this article took a ‘status signalling’ approach to interpret this Chinese debate. As a mechanism of information transmission, status signalling aims to change or maintain a special type of ‘status belief’ among relevant political actors. China’s status signalling is a multi-level game wherein the state’s leadership pivots between domestic and international audiences. As Chinese leaders face competing pressure from domestic and international audiences, a rising China faces a wide range of challenges. China’s crucial challenge will be to manage its conflicting roles in ways that advance its national interests, but avoid engendering dangerous misperceptions and expectations among various audiences. In particular, a rising China must balance between its competing incentives of resolve and reassurance, status and responsibilities, and a domestic audience and international audience. These competing incentives have shaped Chinese debate on international positioning.

Acknowledgements

This article was originally presented at the Griffith-Tsinghua Conference ‘Chinese Scholars Debate International Relations’ in Beijing on December 11–12, 2016. The authors would like to thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for its support [Grant No. 16-1512-150509- IPS]. The author would also like to express his appreciation to Amitav Acharya, Feng Huiyun, He Kai, Liu Feng, Stephen Walker, Yan Xuetong, Zhu Jiejin, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.