ABSTRACT
Given the increasingly transnational and interdependent character of China’s recent foreign relations environment, the definition of ‘China’ itself demands consideration. What constitutes ‘inner’ (nei) and ‘outer’ (wai) has recently become confused in practice by the plethora of actors from the centre and from the regions operating across China’s borders, despite Beijing’s continuing emphasis on state (and particularly CCP) sovereignty and a nationalism (and concept of ‘nationality’) ranging from affirmative to assertive to aggressive. China’s foreign relations also operate in the party-to-party, stateto-state and people-to-people spheres and have been conditioned periodically by radical ideological formulae, the principle of national interest and regime integrity, and the pragmatics of ‘techonomic’ linkaging, and they have ranged from cooperation to conflict.
