ABSTRACT

Since the beginning of the Jiang Zemin era in the 1990s, the Chinese government has given priority to the development of close and stable relations with the world’s major powers – for the simple reason that China sees itself as a natural and increasingly important member of this rather exclusive but also ill-defined and evolving club. This policy was coined under Jiang as China’s big-power diplomacy (daguo waijiao). After Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang in 2002, the new Chinese Communist Party General Secretary has tried to rebalance his predecessor’s foreign policy to the benefits of its neighbours, multilateral organizations, as well as of what used to be called the ‘Third World’. However, even among the developing countries, China has clearly continued to invest a lot of energy in establishing closer relations, and hopefully ‘strategic partnerships’ with other major or large and influential regional powers, such as India, Brazil, South Africa, Iran or Nigeria.