ABSTRACT
The concluding chapter provides a comparative assessment of the three phases of China’s foreign policy since 1949. Although it made an ideological sense at the onset of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Mao’s adoption of the “lean to one side” foreign policy in the early 1950s directly led to the nation not only geopolitically and geoeconomically isolated but also strategically perilous in the 1950s–1960s. Mao’s decision to seek rapprochement with Washington in the early 1970s was, in essence, his self-correction of his own early disastrous “lean to one side” strategy. By contrast, Deng’s pragmatic foreign policy followed a different logic of strategic thinking, which helped China achieve rapid and sustained economic growth, directly leading to the rise of Chinese power. Hence, the second phase of Chinese foreign policy under Deng’s influence was a golden period in the PRC’s history, which proved most effective in promoting China’s national interests. Xi came to power with a conviction of the rise of China and a strong ambition of rejuvenating the Chinese nation. Hence, Xi has been vigorously pursuing his great power ambition for a rising China by resorting to an assertive and high-profile foreign policy. It seems that such a foreign policy approach increasingly proves counterproductive.
