China as a "Responsible Power": Altruistic, Ambitious or Ambiguous?

Abstract

<p>As China becomes increasingly active in the international system, scholars have sought to understand how international norms and responsibilities have impacted Chinese foreign policy. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this paper seeks to analyze how Chinese government understands the concept of state responsibility and how it projects China's image as a "responsible power" in international society. I argue that China's interpretation and understanding of its state responsibility has evolved and broadened since 1978. Despite some ambiguity in the discourse, Chinese notions of state responsibility have moved closer to the concepts of "responsible power" as articulated by Western scholars. This paper focuses on China's evolving understanding of "state responsibility" during the past thirty years based on a content analysis on a Chinese official news magazine, Beijing Review. This general trend is compared to the evolving international standards of "responsible power" in order to shed light on whether or not there is any convergence between Western and Chinese notions and practices of responsible power. The study then applies this observation to some specific discourses that are related to China's state responsibility, and concludes with an assessment on China's official discourses of its international obligations and duties in its attempts to achieve "responsible power" status in international society.</p>