The world's most hands-off Global Securitiser? China and "political solutions"

China has been showing an unprecedented activism in global security, taking on a more direct role in global security. Since its rise to global power status, the country has attempted to reconcile its image of “responsible great power” with its narrative of “peaceful rise”, developing a “cautious” approach that avoids meddling in foreign conflicts and disputes that could force Beijing to assume a clear position in favour or against one of the conflicting parties. Such a stance has been evident, for instance, in China’s voting behaviour in the UN Security Council over the years with frequent abstentions in potentially controversial votes, particularly those involving the Global South

Sino-Central Asian heritage cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative: drivers, agents, and issues

The article reviews the argument that China’s civil society is less effective in generating soft power than states where civil society operates freely. Over the years, China has become aware of the centrality of civil society in diplomacy and devised cooperative frameworks to increase its attractiveness based on its unique understanding of the concept as an attainable policy outcome. The article contributes to this literature by exploring how the country conducts activities under the framework of people-to-people diplomacy, a priority of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The study presents a case study analysis of China’s people-to-people exchanges with Central Asia in the heritage sector. This article presents some preliminary empirical evidence on how Chinese civil society operates to maximise the chances of representing China positively to Central Asian audiences. The study also argues for two principles to underlie efforts in heritage cooperation - i.e. shared identity and reliance on one-sided interpretations of shared historical experiences

China in 2023: a «global-security-attentive» foreign policy

This article provides an in-depth analysis of China’s foreign policy in 2023, exploring four dimensions: global security, China-United States relations, China-Russia ties, and China’s «active» approach in the Global South. 2023 witnessed an attempt to depart from China’s historical «non-interference principle», marked by the conceptual redefinition of the «Global Security Initiative» and the country’s active involvement in dispute and conflict resolutions across the Global South. In the opening empirical section, the article examines China’s stance on global security, and its attempts to balance «activism» and non-interference. The following section investigates the complexity of China-United States relations, highlighting attempts at strategic dialogue amid persistent geopolitical struggles. Afterwards, the article argues that a recalibration of China-Russia ties is ongoing, emphasising China’s diplomatic discourse on non-allegiance and its less-ambiguous approach toward Ukraine. The last section discusses China’s style of activism in disputes and conflict theatres in the Global South, analysing the Russia-Ukraine war, the Iran-Saudi deal, and the Israel-Palestine war. The article concludes by highlighting the tension between China’s increasingly more active role in global security and the international system and the country’s attempts to preserve its historically crafted image as a «responsible» and «peaceful» great power

Post-Pandemic Asia

illustratorIn 2020, the way we define “insecurity” has drastically changed. Insecurity can now also be invisible and all around us, in the shape of a virus that disrupts people’s lives, upends the economy, subverts the core functions of national governments and jeopardises the foundations of international cooperation. At the same time, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has not made traditional security challenges disappear, especially in and around Asia. This Report presents short- and long-term scenarios for each of the hotspots that challenge peace and stability in Asia, a region that, after the pandemic, has become even more crucial for a swift global recovery

China’s conflict behaviour: domestic and international drivers

The article analyses China’s conflict behaviour from 1949 to 2014. The study aims to further our understanding of the country’s participation in international conflicts and disputes by presenting the first attempt in the scholarship at a systematic quantitative analysis of China’s conflict behaviour. A large-N analysis is carried out through a series of logistic regression models to measure the impact of international and domestic factors. The results of the analysis show that China’s conflict behaviour is strongly affected by international factors such as the power gap between China and target states and the presence of territorial claims; at the same time, domestic conditions—intraparty struggle and regime vulnerability—can mitigate the inclination towards the use of force

Self-Othering e Neighbouring: La costituzione dell’Asia centrale nel discorso internazionalistico cinese con la Belt and Road Initiative

Analizzando longitudinalmente il discorso accademico cinese, l'articolo indaga i discorsi attraverso i quali gli studiosi cinesi hanno concettualizzato l'Asia centrale come una regione del mondo dopo il lancio della Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Questo studio considera la BRI come il punto di partenza per un nuovo slancio nelle relazioni della Cina con l'Asia centrale e una congiuntura temporale favorevole per esaminare come la regione sia stata recentemente ricostituita politicamente. Metodologicamente, un corpus di quaranta testi accademici in lingua cinese è stato analizzato attraverso la variante storico-discorso dell'analisi qualitativa del discorso. La ricerca mira a rafforzare l'approccio degli studi critici sulle regioni presentando un caso empirico di ricostituzione ciclica delle regioni. Inoltre, l'articolo propone di riorientare l'agenda della ricerca prendendo in considerazione l'integrazione di approfondimenti sulla produzione di conoscenza nelle relazioni internazionali non occidentali

Mapping China's Global Future. Playing Ball or Rocking the Boat?

Book on Contemporary Chinese Foreign Policie

Changing images? Italian Twitter discourse on China and the United States during the first wave of COVID-19

Although public diplomacy and its influence on foreign public opinion have been central themes in recent research, the latter often lacks methodological diversity and does not consider how states create competing images. Our study offers a framework for understanding Italian public opinion using a triangulation approach that combines traditional public opinion surveys with advanced text analysis of social media content. We compare the representation of China and the United States in the Italian Twitter community during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis shows that Italians who perceived China as a viable alternative to Western governments in public opinion surveys did so because they distrusted Western leaders and institutions

China’s Conflict Behaviour. Domestic and International Drivers

The article analyses China’s conflict behaviour from 1949 to 2014. The study aims to further our understanding of the country’s participation in international conflicts and disputes by presenting the first attempt in the scholarship at a systematic quantitative analysis of China’s conflict behaviour. A large-N analysis is carried out through a series of logistic regression models to measure the impact of international and domestic factors. The results of the analysis show that China’s conflict behaviour is strongly affected by international factors such as the power gap between China and target states and the presence of territorial claims; at the same time, domestic conditions—intraparty struggle and regime vulnerability—can mitigate the inclination towards the use of forc