Abstract
This chapter begins by defining the terms ‘international relations’, ‘international politics’, and ‘theory’, as they are understood by most Chinese academics. It then explores the methods that they use to approach the study of IR. The purpose is to understand the ideological assumptions underlying their analyses.
Shishi aiushi (Seeking truth from facts).
(Mao Zedong, 1958)1
(Deng Xiaoping, 1977)2
It does not matter if it is a white cat or a black cat, as long as it catches mice.
(Deng Xiaoping, 1962)3
(Mao Zedong, 1961)4
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Notes
Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Chinese edn (Taipei: China Times Publishing Co., 1994), p. 232; Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin lun shijieguan, renshengguan, jiazhiguan [Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin on the world and the meaning and value of life] (Hong Kong: Mingliu chubanshe, 1998), p. 232.
Nam Kui-Hung (ed.), Quotation from Deng Xiaoping (Hong Kong: SubCulture Ltd, 1997), p. 1.
Ibid. In this source yellow cat was used instead of white cat. See the Chinese edition of the same book; 3rd edn (1997), p. 5.
This popular saying, commonly attributable to Deng Xiaoping, can be traced to Mao as far back as 1961. See Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, p. 362.
Feng Tejun, Song Xinning et al. (eds), Guoji zhengzhi gailun [Introduction to International Politics] (Beijing: Renmin University of China Press, 1992), p. 2.
Zheng Jianbang et al. (eds), Guoji guanxi cidian [A Dictionary of International Relations] (Zhongguo ganbo dianshi chubanshe, 1992).
Liang Shoude and Hong Yinxian, Guoji zhengzhixue gailun [Introduction to International Political Studies] (Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 1994), p. 109.
Edited by Liu Jinji, Liang Shoude, Yang Huaisheng, and others, and published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, Beijing, in 1994.
Chen Shenzhang and Lu Xin (eds), Dangdai guoji guanxi gailun [Introduction to Contemporary International Relations] (Nanjing: South East University Press), 1993.
Ibid., pp. 2–3.
Zhang Jiliang (ed.), Guoji guanxixue gailun [Introduction to International Relations Studies] (Beijing: World Affairs Press, 1989), pp. 7 ff.
Liang Zhu, vice-president of Peking University, in Wang Lian, “‘Jianshe you Zhongguo tese de guoji guanxi lilun” xueshu yantaohui zongshu [A summary of an academic conference on “the development of a theory of international relations with Chinese characteristics”]’, Guoji zhengzhi yanjiu [Studies of International Politics], Department of International Politics, Peking University, No. 3 (August 1994), p. 44.
Lu Yi, president of the China Research Society of History of International Relations, in Wang, ibid., p. 44.
Chinese officials were planning to amend the state Constitution in early 1998 to recognise Deng Xiaoping Theory. In the 15th National Party Congress in September 1997, the Party incorporated the ‘socialist market principles’ espoused by Deng into the Party constitution (Far Eastern Economic Review, 25 December 1997 and 1 January 1998, p. 20) and established Deng Xiaoping Theory as the guiding ideology of the Party (China Daily, 31 December 1997, p. 3).
Renmin ribao [People’s Daily], 27 February 1994, p. 4.
The Journal of Sun Yatsen University, social science edn, No. 3 (1994), p. 58. My translation.
Chen Jie, ‘Shaking off an historical burden: China’s relations with the ASEAN-based communist insurgency in Deng’s era’, Communist and PostCommunist Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4 (1994), pp. 446–50.
Bernice Lee, ‘Understanding the Chinese world order: the problem of culture in international relations’, paper presented at the 2nd Pan-European Conference in International Relations, Paris, 13–16 September 1995.
Tian Zhili, ‘Guoji guanxi lilu taolunhui zongshu [A summary record of a conference on international relations theory]’, Zhengzhixue yanjiu [Study of Political Science], Beijing, No. 6 (1987), p. 55.
I passed by Rendai on numerous occasions during my stay in Beijing in early 1995 and again in a visit in June 1998.
My English translation of the names of departments. Office of Teaching Affairs, Renmin University of China (ed.), Jiaocai mulu [Index to Teaching Materials], rev. edn, internal publication, 1991.
See note 4 above.
Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: the Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974).
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).
As defined by Kuhn.
Zhao Baoxu in Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi [World Economics and Politics], Beijing, No. 1 (1995), p. 90.
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, p. 232.
W.H. Newton-Smith and Jiang Tianji (eds), Popper in China (London and New York: Routledge, 1992).
Studies of International Politics, No. 3 (1994), p. 77.
Chu Jianrong in Shijie jingji daobao [World Economic Herald], Shanghai, 6 October 1986, p. 4.
Interestingly, books on IP were shelved in the philosophy section in the bookstore of the Renmin University of China Press. My visits to the bookstore took place in early 1995.
See Chen Lemin, ‘Mantan xifang guoji guanxixue [International relations studies in the West],’ Guowai zhengzhixue [Foreign Political Studies], Beijing, No. 1 (1987), pp. 57–8.
Zhao Quansheng, a graduate of the Department of International Politics at Peking University after the Cultural Revolution and at present an associate professor at American University, Washington, DC, has made an excellent attempt to analyse the micro—macro linkages in Chinese foreign policy. See his Interpreting Chinese Foreign Policy: the Micro— macro Linkage Approach (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Han Weidong and Peng Zenong, ‘Xunmi yizhong xinde toushi shijie jingji zhengzhi guanxi de fangfalu tixi [The search for a new system of methodology for analysing economic and political relations of the world — on the creation of dialectics in international relations]’, World Economics and Politics, No. 9 (1995), pp. 3–8.
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© 1999 Gerald Chan
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Chan, G. (1999). Ideological Assumptions. In: Chinese Perspectives on International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230390201_2
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