The primary interest dictating Chinese policy is the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, which serves as the new principle guiding the relationship between China and the international community.
Yan Xuetong was president of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center Management Board until June 2020.
Yan Xuetong was president of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center Management Board and dean of Tsinghua University’s Institute of Modern International Relations.
Yan is editor-in-chief of the Chinese Journal of International Politics and serves as an adviser to several leading academic journals. A well-known academic in the Chinese foreign policy community, Yan is vice chairman of both the China Association of International Relations Studies and the China Association of American Studies, and is a member of the Consultation Committee of China’s Ministry of Commerce. Yan also serves on several boards, including those of the China Diplomacy Association and the China Association of Foreign Friendship.
Yan has written several books, including Analysis of China’s National Interests, winner of the 1998 China Book Prize, and Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power.
The primary interest dictating Chinese policy is the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, which serves as the new principle guiding the relationship between China and the international community.
A moral realist approach to China’s rise identifies external and internal challenges for an emerging power competing with a dominant state in the international system.
As China’s world leadership role expands, the country’s strategic approach should be grounded in moral realism.
For China to become a superpower like the United States, Beijing needs a new strategy that fully embraces genuine alliances, and not just so-called “strategic partnerships.”
The world’s center of gravity is shifting from Europe to East Asia, and the international system appears to be moving toward a bipolar dynamic involving China and the United States.
China hopes that providing economic benefits to neighboring countries will help Beijing improve its relationships with these states and bolster China’s growing international profile.
China must carefully consider which relationship is more important: relations with its neighboring countries or with the United States.
China has been adjusting its policies toward its neighbors, while continuing to strengthen economic cooperation to promote bilateral and multilateral relations.
President Obama’s recent visit to Asia underscored the importance of the U.S.-China relationship and the challenge of managing it in the context of increasing interdependence, but also tension and mistrust.
The concept of “conflict control” should play a key role in bilateral relations at a time when China’s rise is driving a sea change in the world order.