Seventeenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

As demonstrated in the public handwringing begun by Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner in 2018, western analysts have been ineffective at understanding and predicting the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This paper supports efforts to improve understanding of PRC security policy by applying the ideas of classical Chinese philosophy. It begins by reviewing China’s philosophical legacy and deriving four principles affecting how its adherents will understand the world: potential, emptiness, names, and hierarchy. Working from the premise that the philosophy held by individuals shapes their views on the nature of the international system, how individuals understand it, and proper action for a state within it, the paper then explores the impact of these principles on foreign policy decision-making. Finally, PRC policy towards the South China Sea is used as a case study to examine whether this philosophical orientation provides a useful lens for understanding the security policy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The successful application of the philosophical perspective to foreign policy decision-making has the potential to shed light on the foreign policy of non-western intellectual traditions, open new paths to understanding international relations, and provide a means of explaining why existing theories built on western philosophy may or may not apply to a given polity.