Deng Xiaoping's line of Four Modernizations and Opening Up and Chinese foreign policy: An analysis of China's policies in the GATT/WTO, nonproliferation and human rights regimes

This research tries to understand the interaction between the PRC and the international system by examining China's policies in the GATT/WTO, nonproliferation, and human rights regimes during the Deng Xiaoping and post-Deng eras. In a midst of heated "China threat" debates in 1990s, the author believes that the reality is more complex than the images presented to us in those debates which have often fallen into dichotomy. One way to grasp that reality is to investigate China's policies in different issue areas. Thus, the author focuses on three issues indicated above to achieve the goal.; Three sets of factors: Chinese foreign policy tenets derived from the Deng Xiaoping's line of Four Modernizations and Opening-up, bureaucratic factors and the devolution of central control and international pulling forces are at work shaping China's policies in the three issue areas. The policy tenets of Deng's line, of which the most important one is to exploit the current international systems to help successfully implement domestic economic reform had thrust China into the international arenas, including those of trade, arms control, and human rights. Once it became engaged in these issues and the nexus started to grow, the effect of international pulling forces becomes increasingly more observable and salient. We see that effect in China's bid to enter the GATT/WTO and participation in nonproliferation regimes. During the process of give-and-take multilateral and bilateral negotiations China has displayed a great deal of behavioral orientation consistent with the international trade and nonproliferation norms. However, some elements in bureaucracy and the devolution of central control are working to block China from being further assimilated into those two regimes. As to the human rights regime, due to the fact that the consensus is less strong and the procedures of making member s comply less effective than the other two regimes, China has adopted the strategy of "divide and conquer," which works to its advantages for the time being.; In the end, the author believes that China has internalized the international norms and rules to a certain extent. The ongoing task is to expand the areas of overlapping interests existing between China and international regimes and to further integrate China into the international system peacefully.