The overriding goal of the present regime in China remains survival, and international primacy is now seen by the Chinese leadership as nec...
The overriding goal of the present regime in China remains survival, and international primacy is now seen by the Chinese leadership as necessary for its goal of securing China’s rise or, to use its words, China’s rejuvenation. Internal politics in China too will ensure that China will not behave like the United States.
The 19th Party Congress in October 2017 marked the overturning of several institutions and conventions that Deng Xiaoping had put in place after the Cultural Revolution and the fall of the Soviet Union to restrict the accumulation of personal power, thus preventing the emergence of a disruptor like Mao Zedong or a dismantler like Gorbachev. How long the attempt to change Deng’s arrangements will last is an open question.
As performance legitimacy becomes harder to claim, there is an even greater centralisation of power, a personality cult, and a new authoritarian leader whose legitimacy is increasingly based on nationalism.
The centralisation of power brings with it a concentration of responsibility, so that should things go wrong, as they certainly will sometimes, blame will fall on the leader.
The internal dynamic affects China’s foreign policy in three ways, none of them unique to China. First, the capacity to negotiate, compromise, give and...
