ABSTRACT
The beginnings of China’s “good neighbour” policies In the wake of the damages to Chinese foreign policy incurred after the Tiananmen Incident of 1989, the government of Jiang Zemin placed a priority on relations with Asian neighbours via a series of foreign policy initiatives which came to be known as “peripheral” (zhoubian 周边) diplomacy. This involved attempts to improve international ties with bordering states in the Asia-Pacific region, including those with which China had limited or even non-existent relations.1 As a result, during much of the 1990s Beijing was engaged in improving its Asian relations, settling border and other disputes, and seeking to establish itself as a rising Pacific Rim power interested more in regional cooperation rather than competition.
