Susan Shirk Discusses Chinese Foreign Policy Decisions
Q&A with Susan Shirk
12/28/2012
China Economic Review
Foreign policy wonks around the world are paying close attention to the words and actions of Xi Jinping, China’s president-to-be, for clues to the country’s future foreign policies. For example, many observers in the US took Xi’s warm reception of former US President Jimmy Carter in Beijing in mid-December as a good sign of his positive intentions toward the US.
But while Xi will have undeniable influence on foreign relations, the truth is that Chinese policy rests on many other actors besides the country’s paramount leader. Tensions in the South China Sea this year have demonstrated that a myriad of ministries, military leaders and lower-level officials often shape Chinese foreign relations, as does Chinese public opinion. One reason is that China’s minister of foreign affairs ranks far lower than in other countries: As an ordinary member of the Communist Party Central Committee, the foreign minister holds the same rank as the more than 300 members [more than 200 actually] of that body, Susan Shirk said.
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Susan Shirk is the chair of the 21st Century China Program and Ho Miu Lam Professor of China and Pacific Relations at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at UC San Diego. She also is director emeritus of the University of California system-wide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) and chair of the IGCC International Advisory Board.
In 1993, she founded, and continues to lead, the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD), an unofficial “track-two” forum for discussions of security issues among defense and foreign ministry officials and academics from the United States, Japan, China, Russia, and the Koreas.
