In view of its size, and vast land and sea boundaries that it shares with its neighbours, China has always regarded its peripheral policy as a crucial aspect of its national security. Such a mentality conforms to Chinese leaders' core belief that a stable external environment — in particular, its immediate region — remains the sine qua non for the continued and sustained rejuvenation of their nation.This book examines China's evolving strategies towards its surrounding peripheries. It is the first book to examine in detail President Xi Jinping's steering of China's peripheral diplomacy. It argues that China pursues an ambitious, omnidirectional regional diplomacy that emphasizes the entire periphery region, and not just specific peripheries. According to this book, Chinese regional policy cannot be properly and adequately understood without taking into account its full breadth, substance and scope. Featuring chapters that explore China's evolving policy in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central Asia, and addressing new developments under Xi, this book fleshes out the intricacies of how China has been managing its peripheral relationships in Asia under new circumstances and new leadership.

China’s foreign policy is expanding in scope and depth and now reaches across the globe. Yet its diplomatic efforts focus on its own complex neighborhood. To advance these interests, China’s leaders practice an interlocking set of foreign affairs activities they refer to as “periphery diplomacy.” This report details the main tools Beijing uses to engage the countries with which it shares borders, assesses the campaign’s effectiveness, and lays out the implications for peace and security in Asia.

What is the impact of China's new multi-directional diplomacy on international political economy and how can the international community properly respond to the new diplomacy? Based on extensive research addressing these and other important policy questions, this book investigates China's new diplomacy since the early 1990s with a focus on Chinese initiatives in the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Zhiqun Zhu examines China's current efforts to secure energy, to expand investment and trade, and to enhance 'soft power' around the world. He evaluates how China's activities affect international political economy and how the international community, especially the United States, has reacted to China's new, pro-active diplomacy. The study answers some of the lingering questions about Chinese politics and the policy implications for both China and the international community as they become increasingly interdependent.

This book takes an in-depth look at China’s diplomacy in the New Era under the leadership of Xi Jinping. It begins with the analysis of China’s rise and world transformation, the connotations of China’s New Era and its new world ideal as “Community of Shared Future for Mankind” and then presents Xi Jinping’s grand strategy by analyzing his new ideas on the governance of China and global governance, theory and practice of China’s diplomacy in the New Era. Key concepts and innovation cases in China's diplomacy around security, BRI, opening-up strategy, and its strategic approach to the USA are introduced as well, which builds an overview of China's diplomacy.

Since the end of the Cold War, the new Chinese leadership generation has had to promulgate new guiding principles for handling global diplomacy which acknowledges China's new position. Given the dramatic changes in the international system and its domestic economic success for the growing 'China's rise' idea on the global stage, China in the 21st century faces a mixture of old and new challenges, including terrorism, hegemonism, and authoritarianism. While Deng Xiaooping combined Taoism, an ancient Chinese philosophy, into 'Taoist diplomacy' in response to the hostile international position after the Tiananmen Incident, China's foreign policy keeps changing, and the multidimensional diplomacy adopted by China can be seen as a consistent theme in Chinese foreign policy in the 21st century. Multidimensional Diplomacy of Contemporary China attempts to examine the origins, guiding principles and sequential outcomes of China's multidimensional diplomacy in the 21st century, working under the flag of 'peaceful development,' 'harmonious international order,' and 'global responsibility.' The contributions are grouped into three sections. The first discusses the theoretical foundations of multidimensional diplomacy. The second section turns the analytical focus to China's immediate neighbors in East Asia, and at last the book will go beyond the immediate neighborhood of China to the global community. These essays explore China's dealings with the countries of Africa, the Gulf, and the South Pacific and provide other in-depth analyses on China's foreign policy towards Pakistan, Russia, and Japan. This book seeks to significantly shape the knowledge and thinking about China's global interactions in the 21st century.

There has been a discernable calibration of Chinese foreign policy since the ascension of Xi Jinping to the top leadership positions in China. The operative term here is adjustment rather than renovation because there has not been a fundamental transformation of Chinese foreign policy or "setting up of a new kitchen" in foreign affairs. Several continuities in Chinese diplomacy are still evident. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has not wavered from its overarching strategy of rising through peaceful development. The PRC is still an active participant and leader in, or shaper of, global and regional regimes even as it continues to push for reforms of the extant order, towards an arrangement which it thinks will be less unjust and more equitable. It seeks to better "link up with the international track", perhaps even more so under Xi’s stewardship. Yet amidst these continuities, it is clear that there have been some profound shifts in China’s foreign policy. From the enunciation of strategic slogans such as the "Asian security concept" and "major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics"; the creation of the China-led and initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; the pursuit of Xi’s signature foreign policy initiative, the One Belt One Road; to a purportedly more assertive and resolute defense of China’s maritime territorial interests in East Asia—examples of these foreign policy calibrations (both patent and subtle) abound. In short, this has not been a complete metamorphosis but there are real changes, with important repercussions for China and the international system. The burning questions then are What, Where, How and Why: What are these key foreign policy adjustments? Where and how have these occurred in Chinese diplomacy? And what are the reasons or drivers that inform these changes? This book seeks to capture these changes. Featuring contributions from academics, think-tank intellectuals and policy practitioners, all engaged in the compelling business of China-watching, the book aims to shed more light on the calibrations that have animated China’s diplomacy under Xi, a leader who by most accounts is considered the most powerful Chinese numero uno since Deng Xiaoping.

China's continuing rapid economic growth and expanding involvement in global affairs pose major implications for the power structure of the international system. To more accurately and fully assess the significance of China's emergence for the United States and the global community, it is necessary to gain a more complete understanding of Chinese security thought and behavior. This study addresses such questions as: What are China's most fundamental national security objectives? How has the Chinese state employed force and diplomacy in the pursuit of these objectives over the centuries? What security strategy does China pursue today and how will it evolve in the future? The study asserts that Chinese history, the behavior of earlier rising powers, and the basic structure and logic of international power relations all suggest that, although a strong China will likely become more assertive globally, this possibility is unlikely to emerge before 2015-2020 at the earliest. To handle this situation, the study argues that the United States should adopt a policy of realistic engagement with China that combines efforts to pursue cooperation whenever possible; to prevent, if necessary, the acquisition by China of capabilities that would threaten America's core national security interests; and to remain prepared to cope with the consequences of a more assertive China.