"How may the world be at peace?": Idealism as realism in Chinese strategic culture

Rosita Dellios, Bond University

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Rosita Dellios, (1997) ' "How may the world be at peace?": Idealism as Realism in Chinese Strategic Culture', in Valerie M. Hudson (ed.) Culture and Foreign Policy, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, Colorado, 1997, pp. 201-230..

From Culture and Foreign Policy, edited by Valerie M. Hudson.
Copyright © Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1997. Used with permission of the publisher.

Abstract

There is a famous orientalism which declares: "Let the Chinese dragon sleep for when she awakes she will astonish the world." In this decade of China's self-strengthening, Western Realists seem to be seeing dragons again. Not so their geoeconomic counterparts. They see only markets. Neither the threat nor opportunity analysts, however, quite see China in the "round"; a mandala of security in which certain principles have long held sway over matters of survival and, indeed, benefit. An appreciation of China's cultural-philosophical tradition provides a corrective to these blinkered visions. More than that, it suggests a way forward in a world once again questioning the basis for peace in the aftermath of great power contention.