One of the great puzzles of the early twenty-first century is predicting what world order will look like by mid-century. This essay examines how Chinese futurologists are planning for the PRC to surpass the US to beco... more abstractOne of the great puzzles of the early twenty-first century is predicting what world order will look like by mid-century. This essay examines how Chinese futurologists are planning for the PRC to surpass the US to become the most important country in the world by around 2035. It argues that China is moving from a defensive and inward-looking notion of the future, exemplified by former president Hu Jintao’s Harmonious World policy, to a more offensive and expansionist view of the future that is informed by Xi Jinping’s China Dream policy, which includes a Sinocentric ‘World Dream’. While the geopolitics of US-China relations is the main focus of China’s futurology, the essay also explores how Europe’s normative power impacts China’s futures. With this in mind, the essay concludes that Beijing’s plans are unlikely to succeed. Rather, it is more likely that 2035 will see either 1) a fragmented world order that is neither unipolar nor bipolar, or 2) a continuation of the existing global liberal order, albeit in a more shallow form. The question remains: how Chinese people will respond when the PRC does not gain the world leadership that has been promised as ‘inevitable’ by China’s leaders?

International Politics, Futures Studies, and Contemporary China

Callahan discusses how Beijing's Belt Road Initiative (also known as OBOR) is indicative of China's new grand strategy.

Development Studies, European Foreign Policy, China, Grand Strategy, and China Grand Strategy

Joseph Nye concentrates on the positive attractive aspects of soft power as a foreign policy tool. This article will argue that the Chinese discussion of soft power is interesting because it does the opposite: soft po... more abstractJoseph Nye concentrates on the positive attractive aspects of soft power as a foreign policy tool. This article will argue that the Chinese discussion of soft power is interesting because it does the opposite: soft power is negative rather than positive, and is employed as a tool in domestic policy more than in foreign affairs. It will use Chinese President Xi Jinping's new 'China Dream' discourse to explore China's 'negative soft power' strategy. Rather than take for granted that we understand what the 'Chinese values' are that inform the PRC's soft power, it argues that soft power discourse is a useful heuristic device for understanding how Chinese policy makers and public intellectuals are actively constructing a 'China' and a 'world' to promote regime legitimacy. The Chinese case thus suggests that we need a more complex view of power that considers the contingent dynamics of its hard/soft, positive/negative, foreign/domestic aspects.

Foreign Policy Analysis, China, and Soft Power

Since Xi Jinping became leader in 2012, he has redirected Chinese foreign policy. This article examines the role of peripheral diplomacy in Xi’s emerging grand strategy. While it is popular to look to theories of the ... more abstractSince Xi Jinping became leader in 2012, he has redirected Chinese foreign policy. This article examines the role of peripheral diplomacy in Xi’s emerging grand strategy. While it is popular to look to theories of the international system – offensive realism and liberal institutionalism – to explore this issue, this article follows constructivism to take seriously the role of ideas and domestic politics in foreign policy-making. Through an analysis of official and unofficial sources, it traces linkages between ideas, institutions, and behavior in Chinese foreign policy. In particular, it argues that Beijing is combining new ideas (China Dream, Asia Dream), new policies (comprehensive diplomacy and security), new institutions (AIIB) and new projects (BRI) to build what Xi calls the ‘community of shared destiny.’ The goal is to weave neighboring countries into a Sino-centric network of economic, political, cultural, and security relations. Beijing’s grand strategy thus is to re-constitute the regional order – and eventually global order – with new governance ideas, norms, and rules. Hence while the Asian region is an important focus of Chinese foreign policy, Beijing’s peripheral diplomacy is about more than win-win cooperation in the neighborhood. It also acts as the means to the much larger end of promoting China’s new vision of global governance. Theoretically, the article shows how ‘connectivity’ is more than an issue of the ‘hardware’ of physical infrastructure; it is also a ‘software’ issue of the connectivity of ideas, institutions, and behavior in diplomacy itself.

Asian Studies, International Relations Theory, Identity politics, China's foreign policy, and Diplomacy and international relations

"Re-Collecting China" (7 minutes) a film by Bill Callahan http://bit.ly/1QoDqrg When I lived in China in 1985-86, I became obsessed with pencil sharpeners. They came in all shapes: televisions, telephones, and cars; ... more abstract"Re-Collecting China" (7 minutes) a film by Bill Callahan http://bit.ly/1QoDqrg When I lived in China in 1985-86, I became obsessed with pencil sharpeners. They came in all shapes: televisions, telephones, and cars; tigers, elephants, and giraffes; pistols, Maotai bottles, and brandy bottles; violins, pianos, and Laughing Buddhas. In one year, I collected over 200 different pencil sharpeners. The Chinese party-state seems to encourage such obsessions. Its political campaigns from the 1950s to the 1980s produced not only a plethora of slogans, but also a wide range of collectable communist consumer items: Mao badges, propaganda posters, postage stamps, and mugs inscribed with political messages. To mark the 50th anniversary of the start of China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76), this short documentary film explores the everyday experience of revolution and reform by examining these cultural artifacts, and the people who collected them. The film comes from my exhibition at the LSE's Atrium Gallery: "An Archeology of Modern China: Artifacts of Revolutoin and Reform" I hope the film is useful for teaching, as it raises questions of ideology, self/other relations and research ethics.

International Relations, Visual Anthropology, Visualization, Social and Cultural Anthropology, China, and 5 more

From his new position of power, Xi Jinping can show that China is a generous emerging power, rather than a vengeful revisionist state. https://www.opendemocracy.net/william-callahan/president-xi-jinping-this-is-how-yo... more abstractFrom his new position of power, Xi Jinping can show that China is a generous emerging power, rather than a vengeful revisionist state. https://www.opendemocracy.net/william-callahan/president-xi-jinping-this-is-how-you-can-win-nobel-peace-prize

Japanese Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Contemporary China, and Forgiveness and Reconciliation

'toilet adventures' shortlisted for a major award has been shortlisted for a major award in 'Research in Filmmaking' by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). the film: https://www.thechinastory.org/2015/08... more abstract'toilet adventures' shortlisted for a major award has been shortlisted for a major award in 'Research in Filmmaking' by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). the film: https://www.thechinastory.org/2015/08/toilet-adventures-in-china-making-sense-of-transnational-encounters/ the AHRC announcement: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/ahrcshortlistfilmawards/

Thailand, International Politics, Contemporary China, Visual Arts, Toilets, and 1 more

The mother of feminist international relations (IR), Cynthia Enloe, recently explained that to get a critical bottom-up understanding of international politics we need to switch from research in the halls of power to ... more abstractThe mother of feminist international relations (IR), Cynthia Enloe, recently explained that to get a critical bottom-up understanding of international politics we need to switch from research in the halls of power to take ‘notes in a brothel, a kitchen, or a latrine’. In this spirit, in 2014 I started working on a documentary film, toilet adventures, that explores the politics of shit in China. It uses on-camera interviews with dozens of participants to explore the very mundane personal experience of going to the bathroom in the PRC. I thought this would be an entertaining way to chart how people encounter the unknown through a bodily function that is both intimate and universal. The film thus is part of Enloe’s broader project that shifts away from the state-to-state framing of mainstream IR to explore issues at the cutting edge of critical IR and China studies: the role of person-to-person relations, the importance of the everyday, and the value of emotions and embodied knowledge. (see more at URL)

International Relations, China, Documentary Film, Orientalism, and Post structuralism and Critical theory in International Relations, political theory and cross-civilizational relations, issues of identity and difference in international relations theory

http://bit.ly/1LTlLKx The rise of China is the key issue of the 21st century. Can China rise peacefully? Has America’s engagement policy created a peer competitor? How should the U.S. respond to Beijing’s island-bu... more abstracthttp://bit.ly/1LTlLKx The rise of China is the key issue of the 21st century. Can China rise peacefully? Has America’s engagement policy created a peer competitor? How should the U.S. respond to Beijing’s island-building in the South China Sea, and its institution-building in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)? This short documentary film (19 minutes) by Bill Callahan examines how the personal experiences of iconic IR theorists John Mearsheimer (Chicago) and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (Harvard) on their first trips to China have framed their strategic understandings of U.S.-China relations. Are Offensive Realists like Mearsheimer correct that a rising China is structurally determined to challenge the hegemonic U..? Can U.S.-China relations be managed through diplomacy and international organisations, as the Liberal Institutionalists argue? Or does America’s China policy need a combination of Realism and Liberalism, as Nye suggests? Bill Callahan is professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His films can be viewed at www.vimeo.com/billcallahan.

Security Studies, Critical Security Studies, Chinese foreign policy, IR Theory, International institutions, and 4 more