Constructing an Analytical Framework for Explaining Chinese Foreign Policy

An analytical framework is constructed to explain Chinese foreign policy, adopting a symbiotic neorealist–constructivist approach. Chinese foreign policy is influenced and shaped by a number of factors, which can be divided into two categories, conditioning and determining. While China’s geographical and geopolitical environment, power (physical, economic and military), philosophical traditions, historical experience, and communist ideology function as conditioning factors, its national interests and the personality traits and leadership styles of individual communist leaders serve as determining factors. While the conditioning factors provide physical conditions, power foundation and parameters, and the philosophical, historical and ideological sources of Chinese foreign policy, it is the determining factor that directly sets the direction and specific objectives of Chinese foreign policy and the approaches to achieve the nation’s foreign policy objectives.