Friendship in Chinese International Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 177-199
Author(s):  
Chih-Yu Shih

Confucian friendship adds to the literature on friendship distance sensibilities and aims to maintain and even reinforce the Confucian ethical order, whereas contemporary international politics fails to provide any clear ethical order. The use of friendship and the concomitant creation of a friendly role by China indicate an intended move away from the improper order, including the tributary system, the Cold War, imperialism, and socialism. Confucian friendship continues to constitute contemporary Chinese diplomacy under the circumstance of indeterminate distance sensibilities. It highlights the relevance of the prior relations that are perceived to have constituted friendship. This article explores several illustrative practices of a Confucian typology of friendly international relations, divided into four kinds of friendship, according to (1) the strength of prior relations and (2) the asymmetry of capacity, including the policies toward Russia, North Korea, and Vietnam, among others. Such a Confucian friendship framework additionally alludes to foreign policy analysis in general. The US policies for China and North Korea are examples that indicate this wide scope of application.

1986 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Kubalkova ◽  
A. A. Cruickshank

In the historiography of the Cold War a small but active group of American historians influenced by New Left radicalism rejected the view prevailing in the USA at the time in regard to the assignation of responsibility for the beginning and continuation of the Cold War.1 Although their reasoning took them along different routes and via different perceptions as to key dates and events, there were certain features all US revisionists had in common (some more generally recognized than others). Heavily involved as they were in the analysis of the US socio-economic system, the Soviet Union was largely left out of their concerns and it was the United States who had been found the ‘guilty’ party. The revisionists, of course inadvertently, corroborated Soviet conclusions, a fact gratefully acknowledged by Soviet writers.2


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 272-279
Author(s):  
Balwinder Singh

After the end of Second World War, the two power bloc was raising in world politics and the revelry between the blocs was on top. The Cold War politics emerged as a bitter experience of international relations. Both blocs were mollifying the other countries of the world. It had to become stronger because of many newly independent countries. For the sake their independence many countries choose the third path to avoiding war and keeping their independence, they framed NAM (Non-alignment Movement). Most of these countries was belong to Asia and Africa and also newly independent. The US (United States) and European countries criticized NAM and revoked it as a group of opportunist countries. The NAM emerged as an international platform as a third alternative of two power blocs. The NAM was the international phenomenon of developing and third world countries. Non-alignment grew out of the cold war bitter relationship between US and USSR. Some developing and third world newly independent countries refused to post Second World War world politics through the eyes of their erstwhile colonial rulers. Indian Prime Minister Nehru was one of the paramount leaders of NAM since its inception. After the demise of British rule in India, India also refused to join any bloc in Cold War time. Nehru did not want to enter in two bloc politics due to India’s national interests. He thought that Indian independence could diminish if India going toward any blocs and adopted Non-alignment as an instrument of foreign policy. He also made effort to discuss other world leader to formulate NAM as platform of collective voice of newly independence countries. The paper also aims to explain India’s contribution to the Non-alignment Movement. The first formal conference of NAM was in Bandung in 1961. Nehru and others NAM leaders uttered against new imperialism in Asia and Africa in Bandung Summit by the western countries. Some countries raise questions about the importance and relevance of NAM and produce it as a callous movement after the end of the Cold War. However the broader membership of NAM proved its relevance and importance. Most of the world countries adopted NAM membership due to its popularity and momentous agenda. While the Cold War strategic environment underestimates Non-alignment movement and the two power blocs tried to demoralize Non-alignment movement, however the Non-alignment movement was accomplishing their work with a greater momentum. Non-alignment, both as a foreign policy perspective of most newly independence states of Asia, Africa and Latin America and as well as an international movement was a critical factor of contemporary international relations. The Non-alignment movement was the collective voice of developing and third world countries since the first official meeting of its leaders in Belgrade in 1961. The policy of the Non-alignment has been being the issue of debate in international politics since its origin. In 1970’s, its importance and relevance had questioned, with the emergence of détente in international relations. The US and European countries did not consider the NAM movement at that time. Both power blocs were also questioned the role of NAM in cold war era. The western countries always tagged NAM as a collaboration of opportunist countries. It was such a big thing that NAM survived in fracas of cold war. The study tried to remove skepticism on Non-alignment and NAM in post-Cold War arena. It is also suggesting a new way for making the movement effective and relevant in present context.


Author(s):  
Matthias Middell

The essay argues that the story of 1989 can be told either as a narrow or a wide story. The narrow story focuses on the end of communism, the unification of Germany, and the subsequent integration of former communist states into the European Union. It works especially well for Central and Eastern Europe, although it also has implications for regimes in Africa that relied on Soviet support. However, it also requires considerable qualification, given the survival of communist regimes in China, Vietnam, Cuba, and elsewhere. In the second, wide version of the story, 1989 brings to visibility processes that had been at work for several decades, undermining the power blocs of the Cold War era and the territorially defined polities on which the system of international relations rested. In this story 1989 is of as much relevance to the West as to the former Eastern Bloc. The essay looks at both stories in relation to Gorbachev and perestroika, the US role in the end of the Cold War, German unification, the singing revolution in the Baltic, and 1989 in China and Cuba.


2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Inoguchi

Stimulated by Ole Waever's (1998) examination of American and European developments in International Relations, this article examines the growth of the discipline of international relations in Japan, focusing on the major currents of the social science tradition since 1868 and the intellectual agenda of international relations since 1945. Postwar scholarship has reflected the main themes and questions of Japanese history — the causes of war, the struggle for peace, Japan's place in the world and Asia, and Japan's role in the Cold War. To an extent, the organization and substance of IR teaching and scholarship in Japan can be explained by reference to certain sociological and historical variables. Discussions about methodology have not mirrored the “great debates” of the United States, but the younger scholars are moving closer to the American pattern. Recent exposure to and interaction with American scholarship has become increasingly visible, allowing Japanese scholars to make important contributions to debates in the US.


Author(s):  
Mitchell Belfer

Revisionist takes on the Cold War have entered public discourses and rendered understanding of the lead-up to, and unfolding of, the long game of brinkmanship between the US and USSR unintelligible. While this work does not seek to redress the meta-problems of current treatments of the Cold War, it does seek to examine some of the undercurrents during that period of international relations history. Specifically, this work presents a theoretical assessment of the small states that comprised the rank and file members of the Cold War blocs. The states of the Caribbean Basin, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe are used to illustrate the theoretical underpinnings of this work. Ultimately, this work deviates from more conventional understandings of the Cold War by intellectually reflecting on the manner in which small states were treated by their bloc leaders.


Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Wheeler

How can two enemies, locked into a spiral of fear and insecurity, transform their relationship into a trusting one? Trusting Enemies argues that the field of International Relations has not done a good job of answering this question. This is because it has been looking in the wrong place. Where trust-building has been theorized by the discipline of International Relations, the focus has been on the state and the individual. This book argues that there is a need to appreciate the importance of a new level of analysis in trust research—the interpersonal. In its development of a theory of interpersonal trust between state leaders in adversarial relationships, this book argues that the obstacles to leaders sincerely signalling their peaceful intent can be overcome and that trust-based relationships provide the greatest assurance of accurate signal interpretation. This book examines three cases: the interaction between US and Soviet leaders Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and its role in ending the cold war; the interaction between Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and its role in the Lahore peace process of 1998–9; and the interactions across 2009–10 between Barack Obama and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that did not lead to a breakthrough in the US–Iranian nuclear relationship.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 151
Author(s):  
Rafael Martín

The history of the international relations of the People’s Republic of China contains lines of action that should not go unnoticed. These lines are the consequence of the extraordinary circumstances that have surrounded the country since its proclamation in 1949, then within the framework of the Cold War, but with a huge burden of personality and ideology. Chinese history and culture, thus, have shaped their own context from which the events that took place around them were understood. The energetic personality of Mao and his ideology, the pragmatism of Deng Xiaoping, and the vicissitudes experienced by the world from the Cold War to the present, have created a cosmos of diverse circumstances that nevertheless do not detract from the fact that Chinese diplomacy has wellmarked lines of action, flexible, but immutable in time, and which are typical of their personality and idiosyncrasy. To understand the international relations of a country is to understand the soul of its citizens, because this is often reflected in the others. China has lived these years its inclusion in the new global world without forgetting the<br />patterns that were already recognizable in distant times.


2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 741-762 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN L. QUACKENBUSH

AbstractAlthough deterrence theory was a central focus in the study of International Relations during the Cold War, attention has shifted away from deterrence since the end of that conflict. Nonetheless, deterrence is a general phenomenon that is not limited to any particular time or space. Moving beyond a simple focus on the US-Soviet relationship, scholars have recently begun further explorations of deterrence, through development of theory, analysis of policy alternatives, and empirical analysis. This article seeks to evaluate where deterrence theory stands today through: (1) a consideration of distinctions between different strands of theory; (2) a discussion of the assumption of rationality in deterrence theory; (3) an examination of three important distinctions in deterrence; (4) an evaluation of the difficult task of testing deterrence theory, and (5) an overview of recent theoretical developments. The primary conclusion is that perfect deterrence theory provides a logically consistent alternative to classical deterrence theory and therefore provides the most appropriate basis for further theoretical development, empirical testing, and application to policy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 195-205
Author(s):  
Artyom Gofman

This article is dedicated to the studying of the Madrid Peace Conference significance in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict settlement. The end of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1990s had a huge impact on the system of international relations and the Arab-Israeli conflict as well. The US an the USSR both worked together to gather Israelis an Arabs in one place for the purpose of negotiating. Thus they took part in the Madrid Peace Conference 1991. From the beginning Israeli position was more strong than Arabs one mainly because of the American bias in favor of Israel. Meanwhile, the USSR was on the edge of collapse and couldn’t organize a comprehensive support for Arabs as Soviets did it before. Furthermore, each sides tried to lead the process of negotiations in their favor because both the Arabs and the Israelis expected different results of this conference. In the end, all participants were fed up with pointless discussions. Multilateral track of negotiations brought nothing. The same went with bilateral tracks. To sum it up, the «Madrid formula» of negotiations didn’t fulfill the expectations. But at the same time, it prepared the base of further secret negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians in Oslo. Thus broking psychological barriers between these two sides was the main goal of the Madrid Peace Conference 1991.


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