Chinese Approaches

Chinese IR scholarship has developed no specific theoretical perspectives on international organization and global governance. China’s evolving paradigmatic thinking about global governance has not been informed by any existing IR theory. This chapter discusses three ideas that inform, drive and guide China’s more activist approaches to international organizations and global governance in recent years, as rising China strives to play the role of a global governor. These three ideas are respectively the idea of democratizing international relations, the idea of contributing Chinese wisdom to global governance, and the idea of contending for international discourse power. The chapter concludes with a brief comment on why Chinese ideas matter in shaping common policies and shared goals in governing globally.