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Chinese IR Scholarship as a Relational Epistemology in the Study of China's Rise

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

Hung-jen Wang
Hung-jen Wang*
Affiliation:
National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan (ROC). Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Current anti-Chinese sentiment in the international community has emerged from a knowledge-production background that entails the material fact of China's rising power and ideational factors tied to how the rising China phenomenon is interpreted. The ideational factors can be divided into two groups. One analyses China according to established Western IR theories that describe the country in terms of either threat or opportunity, thereby rendering China as part of an established universal ontology. A second group approaches China's experiences in a more sympathetic light, but still conceptualizes China's rise according to fixed categories such as “nation-state.” This paper argues that both of these groups are guilty of creating self-fulfilling prophecies – that is, they consistently theorize China in opposition to the West owing to the rational epistemology upon which they built their knowledge or perceptions of China. This epistemology conflicts with the efforts of Chinese IR scholars to evaluate China's rise in a relational manner.

摘要

摘要

目前国际上所弥漫的反中情绪，主要来自于一个知识建构的背景，其包含物质层面上中国崛起的事实，以及，在观念因素上中国崛起如何被诠释的问题。观念因素又至少可以区分出两种研究社群: 一种是根据既有的西方国际关系理论来分析中国，以至於最后得出中国要不是威胁，就是机会的唯二结论，而此两种结论又脱离不了一个既定的、普世性的本体论框架; 另一种则是对中国怀有较多的同情心，但其缺陷是仍将中国崛起在概念上视为是某种民族国家类別的表现。本文认为，以上这两种研究社群都创造出一种所谓的自证预言，换言之，由于他们的理性认识论立场，以至於总将中国放在西方的对立面在进行分析，从而形成他们长久以来对中国的知识或认知。但是此种认识论立场，却正好与中国国际关系学界一直以来所尝试的努力，背道而驰。因为本文认为，后者根本就是利用关系性的认识论角度在理解他们所认为的中国崛起，而非吾人传统所熟知的理性思维。

Keywords

China's riseChinese IR scholarshipanti-Chineserelationalepistemology中国崛起中国国际关系学界反中关系性的认识论
Type
Research Report
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 245 , March 2021 , pp. 262 - 275
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Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London, 2020

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