ABSTRACT
China reconsiders multilateralism One of the most visible changes in China’s foreign policy since the Dengist reforms has been in the country’s approach to multilateralism and international regimes and organisations. As the country’s global interests have expanded, China has optimised its engagement of various types of organisations in order to gain more “goods” and information from the international system. Moreover, as China’s power grows, it has developed a greater ability to help shape the policies and directions of political, economic and security organisations, and as a result has seen its structural power rise. Structural power, as described for example in the work by Barnett and Duvall, is a concept broadly described as the ability to influence rules, norms and the “structure” of relationship patterns within the international system, sometimes through formal organisations but also occasionally through more subtle social relationships between state and non-state actors, such as businesses, academia and non-governmental organisations.1 This type of power is also based on the ability and capacity of an actor to “socialise” with other actors in foreign relations to gain either material resources or political goods such as prestige and diplomatic power.
