The Evolution Of National Role: The Dynamic Of The Transformation Of Chinese Neighborhood Diplomacy

The power of China has consistently increasing since the PRC had been established in 1949.However,instead of seeking hegemony,its neighborhood diplomacy has had a unique history path.In the Mao era,despite the weak national power,Chinese government were hostile to America and the Soviet Union respectively,dedicating itself to opposing certain hegemonic state.In contrast,nowadays a strong China dedicated to reconstruct the regional governance system and order.The key questions are,why does the Chinese neighborhood diplomacy have a unique path with its increasing power?What are the dynamics of transformation in China's contemporary neighborhood diplomacy?Why does a rising China assume it will promote a peaceful development rather than being committed to regional hegemony?Although existing literatures are valuable in developing the national role theory in FPA and their application in explaining the performance of China's foreign strategy,they,however,suffer from some drawbacks.The national role theory has stronger explanatory power.Based on the national role theory created by Holsti,the research will construct a theoretical framework about the logic of transformation in China's contemporary neighborhood diplomacy.It contends that the transformation of Chinese neighborhood heavily hinges on the evolutionary of Chinese national role definition and the change regarding the concept of the national interest.In addition,according to the uniqueness of China,this research develops a analytical mechanism concerning the evolutionary of Chinese national role definition and advances the international norm,national power,decision group(the development of cadre system of CCP)and the interaction with the expectation of other states as the independent variables.The international norm can either directly influence on the evolutionary of Chinese national role definition or affect it through intermediate variables,namely,decision group,which can also be independent variables.Overall,the four variables are interactive that contribute to the evolution of Chinese national role.Specifically,the national power provides the material basis of the national role evolution,the international norm and the decision group decide the direction of the evolution of the national role,the interaction with the role expectation certify the persistent dynamic of the national role evolution.Based on that,it also contends there are four variables affect the evolution of China's national role definition and will use three different historical cases to testify the view and relevant assumptions.It is a comparative project which uses different historical cases(China's decision in the Korean War,China's participating in the Asian Development Bank,China's 'One Belt and One Road' strategy)to construct the cause-and-effect linkage.The research also demonstrates the future direction of Chinese neighborhood strategy.Existing literatures tend to center on one variable which inluence on the transformation of Chinese neighborhood diplomacy.However,based on national role theory,this research clearly regards the evolutionary of national role definition as the research perspective and constructs a national role theoretical mechanism,which not only pays attention to both the system level and the unit level,building a relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy,but also integrates the rationalism and constructivism,taking into account the national interest,the cognition and the interaction between states.It contends that neither the national power nor the notion is sufficient to explain behavior of China,instead,the national power,the notion interaction with other states and international norm all prompt the evolution of the national role definition and the concept of the national interest.