China's Asymmetric Statecraft

What does China’s regional diplomacy tell us about its geopolitical position and ambitions? Yuxing Huang argues that in an environment of numerous regional competitors and alignments, China practises asymmetric statecraft toward its many weaker neighbours. In the South China Sea, it maintains a uniform strategy toward Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia. Whereas in South Asia, it employs selective strategies to maintain the status quo with India and to enhance Pakistan’s position. This perceptive interpretation of the different narratives and paradigms that constitute China’s foreign policy alerts us to the potential future of its diplomatic endeavours in a dramatically changing international environment.

Yuxing Huang is an associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University. His work has appeared in English in the Chinese Journal of International Politics and an edited volume of the Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series. His work in Chinese has appeared in World Economics and Politics [Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi], Guoji Zhengzhi Kexue [Quarterly Journal of International Politics], and Lengzhan Guojishi Yanjiu [Cold War International History Studies], among other publications. He is a co-author of A Theory of Interventions among Nations: Practice of Spring and Autumn Era and Implications for Modern China.