Abstract Existing scholarship on the international relations (IR) of historical East Asia remains dominated by the stereotype of Sino-centric hierarchy, which obscures its real diversity and complexity. We address these limitations by introducing the concept of “kinship institutions.” Through developing an interdisciplinary two-model framework and applying it to cases from the Western Zhou to the Qing, we uncover diverse kinship institutions ranging from hierarchy to equality, built on real and fictive ties. The architecture of these institutions was shaped by the prevailing power structure and the available kinship form, while their dynamics were driven by the degree of (mis)match between shifting material power and the sticky kinship ethic. Our study transcends Eurocentrism and potential Sino-centrism and advances kinship studies in IR toward generalizable explanation. It enriches our understanding of East Asia and contributes to the Global IR agenda for a Multiplex World.
The existing literature has long debated China's active engagement in global human rights institutions. Some studies argue that China bears a greater moral responsibility to align with internationally accepted standards, while others criticize its tactics as primarily aimed at defending national interests. However, the exact patterns and strategies of China's engagement remain underexplored. This article presents a novel and comprehensive database of China's voting records in the United Nations Human Rights Council from 2006 to 2024. It argues that China supports universally accepted moral principles to enhance its international reputation but resorts to pragmatic calculations when resolutions involve bloc-level conflicts. Building on the concept of moral realism, the findings indicate that: (1) China supports universal human rights principles; (2) China defends countries with poor human rights records; and (3) China criticizes Israel, a close ally of the United States, for its human rights violations. The conclusion suggests that countries with higher levels of democracy tend to vote differently from China, while countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative tend to align with it. Overall, China's human rights engagement appears designed to enhance its global recognition, but in the face of bloc confrontations, it defends its allies while criticizing its rivals.
Which countries are rising, which are declining, and how can we measure these trends? To address these questions, we developed the Comprehensive National Power Index (CNPI), which systematically quantifies power based on three equally weighted components: military capabilities, economic strength, and soft power. Spanning 186 countries from 2011 to 2023, the CNPI offers a transparent, theory-driven methodology that improves upon existing measures by balancing aggregate and net indicators while capturing both elements of soft power-persuasiveness and attractiveness-and accounting for the contributions of both the state and society. Operationalizing these elements as a readily updatable and easily adaptable statistical model enables the CNPI to identify trends in the global distribution of power. Our analysis reveals that while the United States retained primacy across all three components, China, South Korea, and India rose rapidly. Despite China's substantial gains, as of 2023, it had yet to attain peer-competitor status with the United States. Conversely, Japan, Russia, the UK, France, and Canada all experienced contractions in their national power. These trajectories reflect the fundamental reorientation of global power over the study period. By replacing impressionistic assumptions with systematic data, the CNPI offers a rigorous empirical methodology for quantifying structural shifts in the international system.
A rising power's perception of a hegemon's potential alignment formation shapes the rising power's strategies, which begs the question: under what circumstances does a rising power correctly perceive the possibility of a hegemon's alignment formation? The power transition theory, the misperception theory, and the alignment theory provide key insights when addressing this question. Based upon these theories, this article proposes an ideological matching theory, arguing that the ideological configurations of a rising power, a hegemon, and a third party (the hegemon's potential ally) explain the rising power's perception of the possibility of alignment formation between the hegemon and the third party. This article uses three historical cases of China's perception in early Cold War Asia to evaluate the validity of the theory: an overestimation of United States-Soviet Union relations in 1959-60, an underestimation of United States-UK relations during the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in 1954-5, and a correct perception of the United States-Cambodia relations in 1954-5. The ideological matching among the rising power, the hegemon, and the third power serves as a baseline for the rising power to judge the prospect of the hegemon's alignment behavior.
Since its opening up in the late 1970s, China has gradually become an important stakeholder in international relations, and it has become involved in the establishment and leadership of more than 20 international institutions. Some of these international institutions follow Western templates of international cooperation, while others seem to have a distinct Chinese signature. To better understand China's increasing role with regard to international institutions, this article focuses on their institutional design through qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). We find that the institutional design of China-led institutions is influenced by both the policy type of the institution and the composition of the rest of the membership. When other major powers and democratic states are included as members, such institutions tend to have higher levels of institutionalization but also Chinese control. We furthermore find that the design of China-led institutions is more consistent for those established during Xi's presidency since 2013. These findings are important because they provide new interpretations of China's uniqueness in institutional design while resonating with previous research findings on Western institutions.
International relations theories based on the structural paradigm have failed to explain the mechanism driving the changes observed in the interstate order across the Cold War, the post-Cold War and the current era of counter-globalization. This is because the structural paradigm ignores the impact of personal relationship between decision-makers on interstate relations. Furthermore, the structural paradigm cannot account for incidences when interstate order changes without structural change. To address the decision-maker paradigm's investigating the mechanism of interstate changes can improve modern IR theories' explanatory power. This paradigm provides explanations for changes occurring at both the individual and system levels that the structural paradigm cannot explain. This paper categorizes decision-makers according to the combined outcomes based on a dual-axes system of morality and capability, creating the following four ideal types: humane authority, hegemony, egalitarian, and paper-tiger. The mechanism of forming interstate order is the accumulation of actions by decision-makers. The propensity of the decision-makers toward an ideal type results in four different outcomes in the interstate order: norms-adoption, big-stick, noninterference, and terror-balance.
Europe in the 1990s constituted a testbed for International Relations (IR) theory predictions. We compare the predictive power of Structural Realism and the Tsinghua School's Moral Realism in accounting for European outcomes following German reunification and the loosening of post-Cold War bipolar constraints. Some prominent structural realists anticipated intensified securitization, including hard balancing, nuclear proliferation, and even a great European war. Yet European leaders decided to bind a powerful reunified Germany in new institutions (monetary union) and did not hard balance against it. We argue that this outcome is best explained by Moral Realism's emphasis on political leadership as a core determinant of strategic preference formation that mitigates structural drivers. We then apply Moral Realism prospectively to current strategic "forks in the road," outlining sharply divergent outcomes for the European Union (EU): reform and relevance, or stagnation and marginalization under intensifying Sino-American strategic antagonism (the so-called "New Cold War"). We use two issues as litmus tests: European data and artificial intelligence (AI) sovereignty and a French-led nuclear umbrella. The pervasive diagnosis of the ongoing Europe's crisis as a "leadership deficit," calling for figures akin to Adenauer or de Gaulle to arise, resonates with our core finding: Leadership decisions, rather than purely structural dynamics, will determine Europe's destiny.
This essay explores the nature, causes, and prospects of three types of international order transitions: systemic, institutional, and systems transitions. It argues that peaceful change remains possible despite growing turbulence in the context of US-China competition. Historically, systemic transitions, marked by shifts in the distribution of power among great powers, were often driven by crises and wars. Today, however, nuclear deterrence, defensive military technologies, and the increasing agency of non-great powers create greater space for nonviolent systemic transitions. At the institutional level, states are pursuing strategies such as soft balancing, economic statecraft, and informal multilateralism to manage great power competition and shape rules, norms, and practices, fostering the possibility of peaceful institutional transitions in global governance. Looking further ahead, the rise of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies may diffuse power beyond states, empowering corporations, NGOs, and other non-state actors. This could drive a more profound systems transition, fundamentally altering the structure and actors of the international order itself. While risks of technological overreach and geopolitical conflicts persist, this essay concludes that the trend toward low-violence great power rivalry, the growing agency of non-great powers, and the diffusion of critical technologies can collectively steer the international system toward more peaceful transitions in the context of US-China competition than in previous eras.
A surprising gap in the growing range of infrastructural perspectives on international relations is monetary hegemony. Adopting a Science and Technology Studies influenced definition of infrastructure that foregrounds socio-technical relations, this article develops an infrastructural analytical framework to consider the future of dollar dominance. We elaborate infrastructure effects in showing how social practices and technical objects underpin traditional IPE dimensions of dollar hegemony. We also identify how infrastructure formation mediates monetary hegemony through mechanisms of resurfacing, fracturing, and sedimentation, adding further four extended forms of sedimentation, namely con-, re-, de-, and neo-sedimentation. Our infrastructural perspective is harnessed to outline four future scenarios of dollar dominance: tenacity, transformation, turbulence, and transition, which we rank from highest to lowest possibilities of being enacted in the short-term to long-term. These scenarios set the stage for further research on monetary hegemony from infrastructural perspectives in international politics and beyond.
Will China replace the United States as the next global leader? Rather than a transfer of leadership from Washington to Beijing, this article argues that the international system is increasingly characterized by a global leadership deficit-a condition in which major powers possess substantial capabilities and provide visible international public goods, yet fail to generate the durable recognition and authority required for system-wide leadership. The concept of global leadership deficit captures a structural condition that arises not from an absence of power, but from the interaction of selective public-goods provision and contested recognition. Public-goods provision is theorized as a mechanism of status signaling through which states translate material capabilities into leadership claims that depend on audience recognition. Because interpretation and expectations of durability mediate such signaling, conspicuous provision can increase visibility without necessarily producing sustained followership. A comparative analysis of China and the United States shows how different strategies of bounded leadership converge on this outcome. China emphasizes agenda-setting while limiting long-term costly obligations, while the United States concentrates resources in system-anchoring domains and retrenches from redistributive roles. The result is not hegemonic replacement or stable co-leadership, but a fragmented international order marked by a persistent leadership deficit.
What is the relationship between the decline of global governance (GG), the rise of a systemic conflict, the fading away of the liberal international order (LIO) and the increased pressure on international organizations (IO) under pressure? How do we relate these developments to hegemonic decline and the declining attractiveness of the liberal script? I aim to analyze the relationship of these often-conflated concepts with the NALFI framework. Applying the framework leads me to three substantial arguments. First, at the end of the 20th century, an LIO emerged, which was characterized by a GG system. This system carried the seeds of contestation and decline within it. Second, as a consequence, a systemic conflict similar to the one between the socialist and the liberal capitalist world in the second half of the 20th century seemed to emerge. In this constellation, the hegemon and its liberal-democratic allies aim to maintain the LIO against autocratic contestations and attacks. Third, the success of authoritarian forces within liberal democracies, including their rise to power-Modi, Orban, and Trump are only the best-known names standing for this development-has changed the situation again. We seem to be moving to a world in which a purely bilateral hegemonic conflict between the USA and China is embedded in a tripartite ideological structure with populist authoritarians, bureaucratic authoritarians, and liberal democracies as the major players. This most recent development may lead back to the 19th century when an ongoing power struggle led to a Concert with little underlying normativity.
Two types of order exist in society, relational and rational. Much of the mainstream IR literature shows a "rational order" bias, focusing almost exclusively on the latter at the expense of the former. Relational order, rooted more in the reason of nature than human rationality, is spontaneous and more natural in societies, constituting the primary order while rational order, human-designed and made, is secondary, underlain by relational order. Relational order is a dynamic process of continuously harmonizing relations, generated bottom-up, with little external imposition and out of daily practices of ordinary societal members. Its original state is harmony defined in terms of general cooperation. Relational order needs maintenance, for it is never total and the relational process may deviate and go astray. Its maintenance, however, is not to impose an artificial construct to replace its original naturalness. Rather it is to take the process back on track and restore its natural state of harmony. Accordingly, the power to maintain relational order is more "harmonizing power" than the types of power used for rational order, such as coercive, inducive or homogenizing power. Furthermore, since the two types of order are not mutually exclusive, measures and mechanisms of the latter work more successfully if the former functions smoothly. Once relational order goes astray, rational order often fails to operate well. Repairing relations and restoring trust in international society should therefore be the first to consider once the world order goes wrong. Effective leadership in a relational order exhibits the ability to harmonize relations in general and to reorient relations as they are going off track.
The twentieth anniversary of The Chinese Journal of International Politics (CJIP) offers an opportunity to reflect on its evolution and achievements, while also looking forward to its continued growth and contributions to the field of International Relations (IR). Founded in 2005 by Professor Yan Xuetong and publishing its inaugural issue in 2006, the journal was established with the vision that China's IR community could make meaningful theoretical contributions through upholding universal scholarly standards and actively engaging with the global academia. CJIP's core mission is to foster theoretical innovation, particularly through the analysis of China's external relations and the integration of ancient Chinese and East Asian thought with contemporary practices. Over the years, the journal has solidified its reputation as a key platform for intellectual exchange between China and the rest of the world. Its influential publications have spurred significant efforts to develop, test, and refine IR theories by synthesizing East Asian historical and contemporary experiences with broader perspectives. This has led to the development of some innovative theories, such as Moral Realism and Relational Theory. Looking ahead, CJIP will focus on prominent themes, including the great power competition in the digital age, the evolving transition of the international order, and the ongoing development of leader-level and middle-range theories through cross-regional comparisons. At the same time, the journal remains committed to its role as a bridge for inclusive global academic dialog.
This paper assesses the problem of leadership in the contemporary world order. It starts by looking at how leaders are chosen. The argument is that this process is diverse to the point of randomness, and unlikely to change much. The selection processes are mostly not geared to produce leaders who are both capable and virtuous. The argument then moves to consider the difficult context in which leaders will have to operate: a global conjuncture of two major transitions and the interplay between them. The first transition is in the global political economy, from a Western world order to one of deep pluralism, in which wealth, power, knowledge, and political and cultural authority are much more widely distributed than during the past two-hundred years. The second one centres on the fast-mounting contradiction between humankind's unrestrained developmentalism and the carrying capacity of the planet: summed up as the Anthropocene crisis. The argument is that this conjuncture is likely to generate leaders who exacerbate rivalry and conflict. There is a pathway that could open opportunities for virtuous leaders, but we will have to be lucky as well as skilled to find it.
The Liberal International Order (LIO) that has largely structured relations between states since World War II is now deeply contested. Although the challenges to the LIO began long before Donald J. Trump was elected president in the USA in 2016, and especially before his second term, he has successfully transformed the Republican Party into a nationalist, unilateralist, sovereigntist and possibly imperialist coalition. While this essay is not a postmortem on the LIO, I seek to explain what was the LIO, its origins, the challenges it faces, and possible futures. Understanding how international orders are constructed, sustained, and challenged as well as the history of the LIO is important for analyzing the future of international order. Although I am pessimistic, I argue that the future is not foreordained but allows for choice by the new superpowers and other states.
This article revisits my essay on the American Tributary System (ATS), published by the Chinese Journal of International Politics (CJIP) in 2013. In that essay, I argued that the United States (US) resembled Ming and Qing China in important and interesting ways in the conduct of its foreign relations. I portrayed the US as the hub of a Chinese-like tributary system, and identified two tributes that it sought, in return for its global exertions: first, to be recognized as the number one power in the world; and second, to have others adopt its political ideas and forms (i.e. liberal democracy). More than a decade has passed, America has changed; so, has China, not to mention the power distribution in Asia. Given these changes-especially the rise of Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base-it is timely to revisit my thesis for this special issue of the CJIP. This article argues that the ATS is waning; it is deeply contested from within and without. From without, China's rise and its closing in on the US in comprehensive power terms have ended the era of unipolarity. Together with countries such as North Korea, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa, China is challenging American hegemony and leadership in Asia and beyond. Recognition of, and assent to, US hegemony-the first tribute demanded by the US-are thus harder to come by. Even more damaging to the ATS is what is happening within: a deeply divided US, characterized by internecine warfare between Republicans and Democrats and democratic backsliding verging on autocratic rule under Trump 2.0, have severely dented the "City on the Hill" image of America. Given the state of American democracy and the political dysfunction associated with it, even if Trump had wanted to promote democracy abroad, it will be a difficult sell.
The implementation of the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy signifies a fundamental shift from a mere “power transition” to a profound “order transition”. This shift has not only intensified China–U.S. competition but also reshaped the alliance pattern in the Asia-Pacific region. Three perspectives dominate discussions on China-U.S. strategic competition and the evolving realignment patterns in the Asia-Pacific: geopolitical dynamics, institutional contestation, and geo-economic factors. However, the reconfiguration of alliances in the Asia-Pacific is inherently tied to the level of commitment demonstrated by the U.S. allies. Rather than adopting a binary stance of pure bandwagoning or complete autonomy in their policy choices toward the U.S., most states adopt a spectrum of strategic approaches, including limited alignment, neutrality, and strategic distancing. This paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the extent of the U.S. Indo-Pacific allies’ alignment and examines it through the perspectives of sensitivity and vulnerability across various fields. Sensitivity depends on the level of attention these allies devote to the China–U.S. competition, and vulnerability refers to the potential costs they may incur by acting against the preferences of either China or the U.S. The findings indicate that higher sensitivity increases the possibility of adherence among Asia-Pacific allies to the U.S., whereas heightened vulnerability reduces the propensity for adherence. The divergent strategic interests and varying levels of alignment among Asia-Pacific allies with the U.S. suggest that the establishment of NATO-style security architecture in the region is currently unfeasible.
This study examines how global governance institutions (GGIs) led by emerging powers cope with legitimacy challenges under contemporary multipolarity. We contend that multiple, inconsistent, if not conflicting, beliefs and normative expectations are relevant in the legitimation dynamics of emerging power-led GGIs. To account for the diverse positionalities and perspectives of their legitimacy audiences, we offer a tripartite framework based on David Beetham's conceptualization of legitimacy, distinguishing dimensions of legality, normative justifiability, and recognition. Empirically, we present an in-depth, qualitative case study of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Specifically, we ask to what extent the legitimacy challenges faced by the AIIB reflect the conditions of contemporary multipolarity, and how effectively the AIIB has coped with those challenges thus far. Our data include an original dataset of global elite media coverage of the AIIB and 26 expert interviews, supplemented by official documents and communications from the AIIB, various national governments, and other International Organizations from 2014 to 2022. We find that the AIIB has so far been successful in securing its legitimacy despite challenges during its founding and initial operations. Its success can be attributed to its adept responses to the challenges and opportunities presented by the current multipolar environment. Yet, the bank's legitimacy hinges upon its recognized authority as a truly international institution operating in the region's common interest. Whenever these normative claims are challenged-a likely scenario under multipolarity-a downward spiral of delegitimation cannot be ruled out.
Who shaped the historical interpolity orders of the pre-modern non-Western world? Existing scholarship attributes the creation of international order to states and empires. In contrast, drawing on historical sociological critiques of state-centrism, I argue that transnational sociocultural forces also played a pivotal role in shaping non-Western interpolity orders. I substantiate this argument by analyzing the rise and order-making activities of the literati class shi in early modern East Asia, whose practices and identities fundamentally reshaped the region's interpolity relations. First, I show that beginning with the Song period, the shi in China, Korea, and Vietnam emerged as a transnational sociocultural force increasingly autonomous from the state, generating a symbiotic form of state. I then demonstrate how the shi shaped the East Asian order in two interrelated ways: by influencing the foreign policy orientations of symbiotic states and by reinforcing the normative foundations of tributary relations between China and its neighbors. The case of the shi illustrates that a historical sociological approach to sociocultural forces can uncover more complex dynamics within non-Western interpolity orders, moving beyond state-centric models, while also contributing to the globalized historical sociology and offering theoretical and practical insights for the study of international orders more broadly.
The implementation of the United States' Indo-Pacific Strategy signifies a fundamental shift from a mere "power transition" to a profound "order transition". This shift has not only intensified China-U.S. competition but also reshaped the alliance pattern in the Asia-Pacific region. Three perspectives dominate discussions on China-U.S. strategic competition and the evolving realignment patterns in the Asia-Pacific: geopolitical dynamics, institutional contestation, and geo-economic factors. However, the reconfiguration of alliances in the Asia-Pacific is inherently tied to the level of commitment demonstrated by the U.S. allies. Rather than adopting a binary stance of pure bandwagoning or complete autonomy in their policy choices toward the U.S., most states adopt a spectrum of strategic approaches, including limited alignment, neutrality, and strategic distancing. This paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the extent of the U.S. Indo-Pacific allies' alignment and examines it through the perspectives of sensitivity and vulnerability across various fields. Sensitivity depends on the level of attention these allies devote to the China-U.S. competition, and vulnerability refers to the potential costs they may incur by acting against the preferences of either China or the U.S. The findings indicate that higher sensitivity increases the possibility of adherence among Asia-Pacific allies to the U.S., whereas heightened vulnerability reduces the propensity for adherence. The divergent strategic interests and varying levels of alignment among Asia-Pacific allies with the U.S. suggest that the establishment of NATO-style security architecture in the region is currently unfeasible.
