Multipolarity and Modernization. Sources of China's Foreign Policy in the 1980s

Abstract

Stubbe Østergaard, C. Multipolarity and Modernization. Sources of China's Foreign Policy in the 1980s. Cooperation and Conflict, XVIII, 1983, 245-267.

Change in China's policy towards the USA, the USSR and the Third World is analysed in terms of its immediate causes, and by means of a framework categorizing types of sources, processes of change and reappraisals, as well as stabilizers affecting all of these. It is shown that there has been a descriptive reappraisal since Afghanistan, based on perceived changes in conditions of policy towards important power groupings, changes that imply global multipolarity. Domestic politics, in particular the drive towards economic modernization and its ideological ramifications, has resulted in a normative reappraisal of policy. It is found that purges and professionalization have affected composition of the foreign policy-making system, while conflicts between representatives of technocratic and bureaucratic constituencies have affected the balance of power within the system. The article describes the resulting policy, which is marked by independence and equidistance towards the superpowers.