Encounters of Legal Imagination

: A Critical Constructivist Investigation of Rising China and International Law

Abstract

Both English-speaking and Chinese-speaking literatures about the impact of rising China on international law share the problematic dualism assumption by oversimplifying this impact into either purely legal or purely political demonstrations, thereby concealing the narrative privilege behind these dualistic narratives. Drawing on Giddens’ theory of structuration and Koskenniemi’s critical legal theories, this thesis develops a critical constructivist approach (CCA) that critically reflects on the ontology of international law by conceptualising legal imagination as a mode of social reproduction in the Self-Other intersubjective relationship. By combining legal imagination with the transformation of anarchic cultures, two historical encounter structures, the pseudo-pluralist structure and the inverse-symmetric structure, are employed to rethink this relationship within its intersubjective ontology and beyond the dualist assumption that hides narrative privilege through simplified and static conclusions. Using the CCA framework, this thesis critically examines American and Chinese international legal storytelling on three contentious cases, namely the human rights issue in Xinjiang, the South China Sea dispute, and international Cyberlaw-making, reflecting how the self-centric mindset at the ontological backstage of legal imagination reproduced their constellations of international law with dualist foundation on the front stages to reify their legal imaginations as ‘factual’ international law.

In doing so, this thesis advances an epistemic pluralist approach that seeks to emancipate the subjectivity of China as a non-Western state narrator and agent from dominant Western liberal narratives. It encourages finding a reflective and decolonial standpoint in the ‘Third Space’ to rethink both Western and Chinese international legal storytelling. Moreover, it prompts practising not only resisting allegations from the Other’s legal imagination, but also acknowledging the inherent self-centric mindset embedded in the versions of international legal constellations from the Self that silenced the subjectivity of the non-state agents, the Uyghur group, the coastal states of Southeast Asia, and the transnational cyber-technical companies. The standpoint of ‘Third Space’ contributes to avoiding dualistic stories, in which the hidden hegemony established by the Western-centric imperial way in the liberal international legal order might be mirrored in an authoritarian manner at home in China, inducing its problematic search for an alternative international order in the future.

Date of Award	12 Jan 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Yongjin Zhang (Supervisor) & Torsten Michel (Supervisor)