Comment on Looking Back to Look Forward: Geopolitics, Identity, and Engaging China
D a recent visit to a local bookstore, I stumbled upon a monograph by the Chinese scholar Zhang Weiwei (Zhang, 2012). It would have been easy to overlook among the voluminous literature seeking to make sense of China’s much-debated ascendancy in the international arena. Entitled The China Wave, it follows many other works focusing on the exceptionalism of the Asian state, signaling its upward trajectory as a unique (albeit important) global actor. However, what really attracted my attention was the front cover, which boasts sales of one-half million copies of its Chinese edition, making it one of most popular books in China in 2011. Turning to the preface, the author explains that the book was originally intended for a Chinese audience, and the purpose for translating it is to enable the “West” to “emancipate the mind and learn a little more about or from China’s approach and the Chinese ideas, however extraneous they may appear, for its own benefit” (Zhang, 2012, p. xi). Indeed, in the subsequent pages, Zhang proceeds to qualify his claim; by positing China as a civilizational state amalgamating modern state structures with distinct traditions and features originating from its civilization, Zhang argues that there are eight historically embedded ideas that the state follows in charting its developmental pathway. He concludes that this set of political discourses raises questions about many commonplace assumptions of democracy, good governance, as well as human rights, and that “the West may actually gain from China’s rise of power and ideas, just as many developing or transitional economies have done” (Zhang, 2012, p. ix). Zhang’s thesis confirms John Agnew’s (2012) observation that there has been no lack of voices within China reflecting on the country’s positioning in world politics. Indeed, Zhang’s work seems to fall under Agnew’s narrative of “international relations theory with Chinese characteristics.” Rather than suggesting the existence of a singular Chinese (meta)narrative, Agnew traces the genealogies of four different geopolitical themes prevalent in China, to demonstrate how such (selective) histories and geographies have been revived (at different junctures) to envisage the country’s geopolitical futures. Agnew’s intent is neither to privilege these Chinese accounts as necessarily more authentic nor uphold an essentialist view that there are fundamental ideas intrinsic to the existing Chinese polity (which Zhang’s writings seem to connote). Rather, Agnew’s contribution lies in his exposition of how China’s past has been mobilized by intellectuals and politicians alike to provide justifications for the pursuit of particular foreign policy agendas. Accordingly, as opposed to Zhang’s lofty proclamations of the value of Chinese modes of thinking for different societies, Agnew appears more concerned with gaining insight into the mindsets and practices of these Chinese political actors given China’s status as an emerging world power.
Towards a Confucian geopolitics
In this article, we argue that Confucian philosophies are vital to understanding contemporary Chinese geopolitics. Existing Western geopolitical frameworks, we contend, are insufficient for grasping the complex theories and historical legacies that underpin China’s foreign policy. This issue becomes particularly salient as scholars and the public alike try to manage complex and changing geopolitical ideas underpinning the Belt and Road Initiative, recently heralded by the Chinese state and epitomising China’s ambition for expanded global engagements. This article provides a much-needed critical assessment and review of Confucian ideas and their uptake in Chinese state theory, geographical imaginations, and geopolitical scripts. While Confucianism typically focuses on ideals of harmony, hierarchy, and normative social order, geopolitics analyses geographical influences on politics – in particular, violence and conflict. However, it is precisely within this contradictory dialectic that new possibilities for analysing the geopolitics of a rising global power can emerge.
The Gulf War 1990–1991 and the study of international relations
The Gulf crisis of 1990–1991 was, by any standards, one of the more significant international crises of the post-1945 epoch. It involved the mobilization of around one million armed men, the diplomatic involvement of much of the international community, and a war that, for all its limited character, was a significant case of inter-state conflict. In what follows I do not want to dwell on the actual course of this war or to examine in detail specific aspects of the history, not least because the broad outline of what happened is already well known. I do, however, want to look at this conflict in broader perspective, and from two vantage points in particular, each pertinent to the study of international relations (IR).