The Analytic Study of Chinese Foreign Policy

In the absence of pertinent empirical information about how Chinese leaders actually make foreign policy, how can outside observers explain Chinese foreign policy? This essay argues that a coherent and useful theory of Chinese foeign policy must be based on an integration of particulars with regularities in a prioritized fashion, and that particulars are primarily constrained by regularities. One's prioritization thus should begin with those forces in the external environment that shape war and peace: forces that are above and beyond the immediate control and influence of the decision makers and domestic politics.