China in International Society Since 1949: Alienation and Beyond (review)

Since the early 1980s, scholars have been introducing different approaches to the study of Chinese foreign policy. Utilizing the "international society" model associated with the English school as his theoretical framework, Yongjin Zhang has written a fine book on the international relations of the People's Republic of China (PRC). This is a continuation of his endeavor to interpret China's international behavior in the tumultuous world of twentieth-century politics, begun in his 1991 book China in the International System, 1918-1920: The Middle Kingdom at the Periphery. "The central argument of this study," Zhang declares of the work under review here, "is essentially a simple one. The international relations of the People's Republic of China is a saga of the isolation-alienation-socialisation-integration of China in international society since 1949. This saga is the continuation of a historical search by both China and the wider world for mutual accommodation" (p. 244 ).

Zhang challenges the conventional wisdom that China was in isolation from the international system during much of the Cold War. He contends that China did not isolate itself, but rather was alienated from international society. To Zhang, "alienation" means that cordial relations between states "have been broken and friendly feelings toward each other have been turned into bitterness and hostility" (p. 44). "Alienation," therefore, is often accompanied by "violent confrontations and conflicts" (p. 45). Zhang advances a clear thesis that he develops consistently throughout his analysis. He discusses in detail the five stages of China's gradual alienation from international society, starting in 1949, when the PRC, as a revolutionary state, was mistrusted by the United States, which took measures to alienate the emerging new regime in Beijing from the international community. The United States adopted a policy of nonrecognition of "Red China" and urged its Western allies to take the same position. The second phase was dominated by the Korean War, which "created lasting enmity and apprehension between the two nations." The United States instituted a full trade embargo against the PRC and blocked its membership in the United Nations. The PRC was further alienated from an international society dominated by the United States. The third phase was "marked by crises and border wars in and around the PRC" (p. 53). The two Taiwan Strait crises in 1954-1955 and 1958, the Tibetan rebellion in 1959, and the Sino-Indian border war in 1962 only served to alienate the Beijing regime further from international society at a time when many regarded the PRC as an expansionist power. The fourth phase was dominated by the Sino-Soviet polemics of the 1960s, which ended with the PRC's alienation from the Soviet bloc.

This process came to a climax in the late 1960s during the Chinese Cultural Revolution when the PRC "called for and set out to establish an international united front against both superpowers, urging revolutionary changes to the international system" (p. 57). Thus, the author argues, the period from 1949-1970 "was characterized by the exclusion, more than seclusion, of China from the universal international organisations and international institutions" (p. 57). As international society refused to accord the PRC legitimacy as a normal player in the system of states, Beijing constantly posed itself as a challenge to the existing international system.

Just as Zhang attributes China's alienation largely to "systemic factors," he claims that the de-alienation of China in international society since the early 1970s has depended "as much on the systemic changes as on the changing orientation of China's international policies" (p. 58). As the international system became more accommodating to the adversarial relationships between ideologically hostile power blocs, China's perception of changes in the international system led China to reconsider its international strategy. Structural change at the United Nations brought China into the world organization, thus beginning the acceptance of China into international society. China's de...