*Originally published in 2022 and preserved as part of our archive project.Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work.

There is increasing anxiety in the West about China’s growing assertiveness on the international stage. This anxiety is evident in the policies of western states. The USA has described China as ‘a sustained challenge’ to the international system (The White House, 2021 p.8). Meanwhile, the UK is investing in its ‘China-facing capabilities’ and Australia is purchasing nuclear submarines to hedge against China’s presence in the South China Sea (HM Government, 2021 p.22; Masterson, 2021). Undoubtedly, China’s rise poses a challenge to the status quo. If for no other reason than that it represents an alternative to the western-centric international system (Turin, 2010). Nevertheless, representing an alternative to the status quo does not mean that Chinese foreign policy is inherently motivated by challenging the West.

Such anxious perspectives of Chinese foreign policy are rooted in realism, a theory of international relations which assumes actors to be inherently self-interested and motivated by the egoistic pursuit of power (Waltz 2001; Mearshimer 2003). According to this ontology, the potential power to be gained by acting assertively is enough to account for China’s foreign policy motivations. Social constructivism, on the other hand, posits that an actor’s motivations are rooted in the social interactions between groups within the state (Leira, 2019). Using this lens, China’s foreign policy motivations must be understood in relation to its domestic politics. Adopting a socially constructivist ontology, this article argues that Chinese foreign policy is motivated, at least in part, by domestic nationalist pressures and that, by way of the security paradox, western policies are fuelling Chinese assertiveness.

This article proceeds as follows. Firstly, by presenting the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) twin-pillar model of legitimacy and its increased reliance on nationalism to maintain its regime’s legitimacy. It then outlines China’s nationalist movement and its foreign policy agenda, using the 2010 Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute to show how nationalist pressure affects the CCP’s foreign policy decision-making. Consideration is then given to the CCP’s social controls, showing that the CCP is unable to mitigate nationalist pressure via its propaganda infrastructure. The final section then presents the security paradox concept and how the West’s realist assumptions and anxious policies are fuelling Chinese assertiveness.

Pillars of Legitimacy

After Mao’s death, the CCP could no longer rely upon a cult of personality to provide popular support for its regime (Coble, 2007). Rather, the CCP has since premised its regime legitimacy ‘upon the twin pillars of nationalism and economic prosperity (Reilly, 2004 p.283). This model of legitimacy predicates the CCP’s regime security upon its ability to improve the economic conditions of the Chinese people and its ability to protect and pursue China’s national interests.

Certainly, the CCP has closely associated itself with China’s economic success and national interests. The CCP-owned People’s Daily, for example, regularly praises the CCP for fostering China’s ‘thriving and diverse economy’ (Cai, 2021). It goes as far as to praise specific CCP economic policies such as the 13th Five Year Plan, which is credited with growing China’s digital economy by 16.6% from 2016-20 (People’s Daily Online, 2021a). Also published were calls to support the CCP in protecting national interests from foreign intervention. For example, by purchasing Xinjiang Cotton against the backdrop of international condemnation of China’s treatment of Xinjiang’s Uighur population (People’s Daily Online, 2021b).

Notably, Chinese president Xi Jinping invoked both pillars when speaking at the CCP’s 100th-anniversary celebrations. Stating that ‘only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China’ (BBC News, 2021) In this statement, the CCP and its specific brand of socialist ideology are presented as essential to China’s economic development. Meanwhile, Xi also made an overtly nationalistic pledge that the CCP will:

never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate China. Anyone who tries to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people (Xi via BBC News, 2021).

never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate China. Anyone who tries to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people (Xi via BBC News, 2021).

Evidently, the CCP is eager to associate itself with economic development and protecting the Chinese nation. Doing so in accordance with the twin pillar model to maintain its regime legitimacy.

However, an emerging issue with the twin pillar model is that the CCP increasingly struggles to ensure economic prosperity. Central to the economic pillar are Deng Xiaoping’s liberal economic reforms. Since their introduction in the early 1980s, per capita income has increased by 2500% and over 800 million Chinese have been saved from poverty, conferring popular support for the CCP’s economic stewardship (Denmark, 2018). Yet, structural economic challenges including a declining labour force, low per-capita productivity, and an over-reliance on manufacturing result in barriers to sustained growth (World Bank, n.d.). Consequentially, 373 million Chinese continue living in some degree of relative poverty (Ibid.).

As economic prosperity becomes harder to guarantee, the integrity of the economic pillar is weakened. This is an issue of which the CCP is aware. China’s growth rate in 2018 was 6.6% (Kuo, 2019), significantly below both China’s highs of over 10% growth in the 2000s, and the necessary rate needed to maintain high levels of employment (World Bank, n.d.). This led to concerns among CCP officials that rising unemployment might lead to social unrest (Kuo, 2019). This included Premier Li Keqiang, who publicly acknowledged ‘public dissatisfaction’ over China’s stagnating economic performance (Bradsher and Buckley, 2019).

Given the economic pillar’s weakness, the CCP must rely more upon the nationalist pillar to carry the burden of its regime legitimacy. Hence, the CCP has been less likely to constrain popular expressions of nationalist in recent years (Abbott, 2016). In 2005, tens-of-thousands of Chinese nationalists protested Japanese textbooks for their omission of atrocities committed against China during the Second Sino-Japanese War (Watts, 2005). Protesters attacked Japanese businesses and property, including Japan’s embassies and consulates (Yardley, 2005). Some local CCP branches and low-level officials encouraged the demonstrations, but the central CCP discouraged the nationalist demonstrations (Watts, 2005). These efforts included........

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