China’s Selective Identities

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

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2. Introduction: Theoretical Understanding of China’s Selective Identities

   • Dominik Mierzejewski, Bartosz Kowalski

   Pages 1-30

3. Building China’s State Identity: Interests, Institutions, and Conflicts

   • Dominik Mierzejewski, Bartosz Kowalski

   Pages 31-95

4. Debating China as Ideology: Marxism, Materialism, and Own Way

   • Dominik Mierzejewski, Bartosz Kowalski

   Pages 97-156

5. Beyond the Borders: Utopia, Uniqueness, and Soft-Power

   • Dominik Mierzejewski, Bartosz Kowalski

   Pages 157-220

6. Conclusions

   • Dominik Mierzejewski, Bartosz Kowalski

   Pages 221-231

7. Back Matter

   Pages 233-235

   PDF

This book discusses the role of selective identities in shaping China’s position in regional and global affairs. It does so by using the concept of the political transition of power, and argues that by taking on different types of identities—of state, ideology and culture—the Chinese government has adjusted China’s identity to different kinds of audiences. By adopting different kinds of “self”, China has secured its relatively peaceful transition within the existing system and, in the meantime, strengthened its capacity to place its principles within that system. To its immediate neighbors, China presents itself as a state that needs clearcut borders. In relation to the developing world (Global South), the PRC narrates “self” as an ideology with the banner of materialism, equality and justice. To its third “audience”, the developed world (mainly Europe), China presents itself as a peaceful, innocent cultural construct based primarily onConfucius’ passive approach. By bringing these three identities into “one Chinese body” (三位一体, sanwei yiti), China’s policymakers skillfully maneuver and build the country’s position in the arena of global affairs.

• China as Ideology
• Marxism and China
• Materialism and China
• China’s foreign policy
• Constructivism and China
• Constructing Cultural China
• Chaogongtixi in International Relations
• From tianxia to global China
• China and International Relations

• Faculty of Int’l & Political Studies, University of Łódź Faculty of Int’l & Political Studies, Łódź, Poland

  Dominik Mierzejewski, Bartosz Kowalski

Dominik Mierzejewski has a Ph.D. in Humanities and Professorship in Social and Political Science. He is chair at the Center for Asian Affairs, professor at the Department of East Asian Studies, and studied at the Shanghai International Studies University (1999-2000, 2003-2004). He also spent time at the Heritage Foundation (2003), and is a recipient of the Jan Karski Scholarship by the American Center of Polish Culture (2003). He was also a visiting professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Science, granted by the Polish Foundation for Science (2010-2011).


Bartosz Kowalski is Assistant Professor at the Department of East Asian Studies of the University of Lodz, and Research Fellow of the Centre for Asian Affairs. His main areas of research are in modern Sino-CEE relations and China's state-building policies in the north-western borderlands.

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