ABSTRACT
In explaining China’s foreign policy behavior, scholars have employed a range of analyti cal and theoretical approaches. With some risk of oversimplification, two broad categories of such approaches may be identified: international system-centered approaches and do mestic state-centered approaches. Domestic state-centered approaches emphasize the au thoritarian structure of the Communist state and focus on the values, preferences, and objectives of key decision-makers and their factional conflicts or bureaucratic cleavages, explaining foreign policy essentially as an extension of domestic politics. International system-centered approaches explain Chinese foreign policy as a function of the attributes or capability of China relative to other nation-states. In this view, the Chinese government is perceived as responding to the particular set of opportunities and constraints that China’s position in the international system creates at any moment in time.
