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China and non-alignment: An intertextual discourse analysis of relationality within China’s official statements on military alliances
Swedish Defence University.
2021 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Conventional realist expectations on great power behaviour in a perceived threatening security environment calls on these nations to balance against the threats in the form of military alliances with other states. China is perceiving security policies by USA and its allies to constitute threats to its national sovereignty, yet has chosen to adhere to a policy of nonalignment, making it an outlier among other great powers and calling into question positivist inspired inferences on Chinese security cooperation. This posture calls for an attempt at reaching a contextual understanding of China’s negative view of alliances, rather than assuming pregiven intentions of state behaviour. Against this background and within an epistemological and ontological framework of constructivism, I have applied an intertextual discourse analysis between the works of Chinese international relations theorist Qin Yaqing, and official policy discourse on alliances from the Chinese political leadership. By this method and theoretical framework, I have explored the possibility of Chinese cultural and philosophical ideas, as interpreted by Qin, correlating with and influencing the official policy discourse, which in turn reflects the view of alliances. The results show that there is a meaning-making within the official Chinese discourse that is drawing on concepts and ideas derived from Qin Yaqing’s presented concept of Confucian relationality. Together they serve to construct an ideational structure and corresponding Chinese identity that precludes military alliances as an option for Chinese security policy making. This in turn reveals the need to move away from realist and positivist assumptions of inherent state reasoning, and instead pay greater attention to contextual and ideational factors when analysing the Chinese nonalignment policy, with implications for how we understand China and Chinese security policy making in general. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. , p. 58
Keywords [en]
China, alliances, Confucian relationality, discourse, context, ideas
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:fhs:diva-10698OAI: oai:DiVA.org:fhs-10698DiVA, id: diva2:1635403
Subject / course
Political Science with a focus on Security Studies (Master's programme in Politics and War)
Educational program
Master's programme in Politics and War
Uppsok
Social and Behavioural Science, Law
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2022-02-14 Created: 2022-02-06 Last updated: 2022-02-14Bibliographically approved

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Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • harvard-cite-them-right
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf