ABSTRACT
It is widely assumed that historical tradition has conditioned the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China. The history of the Middle Kingdom (see Chapter 2) is often seen as relevant to modern China's perception of the rest of the world. Mao, in such writing, takes the place of the emperor, and is seen to take China down a road of self-important delusion. For example, C. P. Fitzgerald wrote:
'Face' as a concept in Chinese cultural tradition is presented as a central concern in foreign relations (Shih, 1990). While there is a considerable impact of tradition on any aspect of Chinese state functioning, it is problematic to transpose imperial patterns of governance on a thoroughly modern Chinese nation-state in a new world order. Further, truth claims are made by all ideologies and ideologues, as the claim to universal validity of an ideology rests upon these. All ideologies draw their legitimacy from the claims to universal viability of their paradigms.
