Chinese assertiveness and the rise of Xi Jinping: ideational mobilization, elite contestation, and the struggle over regional order

Stevens, F.M.S. (2023)

Doctoral Thesis

In 2009-2010, the notion of a more ‘assertive’ China emerged in Western discourse, a viewpoint that China vehemently rejects. Nevertheless, especially after Xi Jinping rose to power in 2012, it is clear that China has abandoned its long-held foreign policy doctrine of ‘keeping a low profile.’ This Doctoral Dissertation explains this shift by examining the intervening ideas about China’s desired place in the world. CCP propaganda offers compelling evidence that there is much greater continuity between the Hu and Xi eras than is exhibited in the current literature. Moreover, the Dissertation traces the deeper ideational sources of Chinese assertiveness back to the New Left movement and the Patriotic Education Campaign of the 1990s. Agency for the turn in the late 2000s and the selection of compromise candidate Xi is attributed to the choices past leaders made, with some Party elders ‘ruling from behind the curtain.’

• Chinese foreign policy
• Elite politics
• Popular mobilization
• East Asian order

• All authors: Stevens, F.M.S.
• Supervisor: Hosli, M.O.; Putten, F.P. van der
• Committee: Muller, E.R.; Chen, J.Y.W.; Graaff, N.A. de; Pieke, F.N.; Wijk, R. de; Wits, C.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University
• Date: 2023-03-28
• Sponsorship: The Scholten-Cordes Fund; the Stevens family; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies; European University Institute